Our team is made up of experienced entrepreneurs, educators and business administrators.

David Smith
President
A serial entrepreneur, David founded numerous successful high technology startup companies in a career spanning almost 30 years. David’s current portfolio of companies includes Tynax, the global patent and technology exchange, Cambridge Manhattan Group, a startup creation and incubation company, SVBS Co. Silicon Valley Business School, UnlockVC.com and ValueMyPatent.com.

As Apple World Marketing Manager in the early 1990’s, David was responsible for Apple Computer’s marketing programs in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. A pioneer of the early Internet and worldwide web, David’s was founder and CEO of SurfMonkey, Inc., developing the leading web browser and safety service for kids. As CEO of MediaLive Inc., David designed one of the first web browsers, email and TV-set-top-box systems.

Davids' inventions have been awarded U.S. patents and his software and multimedia products have won critical acclaim. David authored the book Zero-to-IPO, now published in Japanese as well as English language. He has addressed U.S. government congressional hearings and appeared on several radio and TV shows.

He holds a BSc.(Hons.) Computer Science & Economics from the University of Leeds (U.K.), a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the University of Westminster (U.K.) and a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law (U.S.).

Mark Cameron White
Professor of International Business
Holding a J.D. from University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, an M.B.A. from Harvard University, Graduate School of Business and a BA, Economics from Rutgers University, Mark White is an entrepreneurs, lawyer and advises emerging growth, mid-stage and mezzanine stage companies and investment funds on all matters relating to the formation, financing, growth and liquidity of technology-based enterprises.

Over the span of 20 years Mark has represented companies in well over 500+ financings and over 200+ acquisitions. He represents and advises companies on a wide variety of transactional matters, including business and legal issues as they pertain to complex strategic and venture financings, acquisitions, and licensing and distribution arrangements. Mark’s practice principally covers corporate, technology, financing and corporate partnering matters for a wide variety of private and public company clients.

Mark regularly advises companies on strategic positioning, business model and revenue generation issues, the preparation of investment materials and presentations, and the structure of complex corporate reorganizations, joint ventures, divestitures, consolidations and commercial partnerships. Mark also represents investment funds on formation issues and regularly represents investors in making portfolio investments.

Louis Carbonneau
Adjunct Professor
Louis is a recognized expert in intellectual property with over 20 years of a diversified professional US, Canadian and international experience in all facets of intellectual property law and business. He is the founder and principal of THE POINT LAW GROUP, PLLC, a boutique law firm where he advises technology and e-commerce companies with an emphasis on business and intellectual property related counseling & transactions, licensing, IP strategy and IP assets management.

Louis is an adjunct professor for the University of Washington's Graduate Program in Intellectual Property Law & Policy where he teaches courses on IP Licensing and lectures on International IP Systems. He is also a partner at Tynax, the largest patent and technology trading exchange where he oversees many patent transactions for individuals, companies and institutional players.

Prior to launching his own company, Louis worked at Microsoft Corporation for 15 years where he was GM, Licensing & IP Ventures and the lead business and intellectual property legal counsel to various business units and to the Microsoft Research organization worldwide.

Louis initially joined Microsoft as the General Counsel of then subsidiary Softimage Inc., a computer graphics software development company based in Montreal (Quebec). Prior to that, he was a member of Smart & Biggar, the largest IP boutique law firm in Canada, where he handled major IP litigations and worked on various IP matters and transactions during several years.

Louis has both a common law and civil law background and is admitted to practice in Washington State and in Canada. He is fluent in English and French. He is a member of the Washington State (WSBA) and Quebec (Canada) Bar Associations, the American Bar Association (ABA), the Canadian Bar Association (CBA), the Licensing Executive Society (LES) and the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA). He also sits on the Education Committee for the Intellectual Property Section of the WSBA and on the AIPLA’s Licensing and Management of IP Assets Committee.

Louis is a frequent guest speaker locally and internationally on the subject of intellectual property strategy, innovation and licensing and how they relate to business. In addition to teaching at the University of Washington, he serves as a faculty for the Practicing Law Institute (PLI) and American Conference Institute (ACI), is an advisor to an early stage fund in Canada and a regular consultant with the Executive Forum where he advises Wall Street analysts around the business of IP. Louis also holds a US and international patent around multimedia technology.

Thomas Leung
Adjunct Professor
Thomas is a leading expert in Asia in business strategy formulation, strategic organization and leadership development. Over the past twenty-seven years, he has built a distinguished career in consulting in Hong Kong, Mainland China and the Asia Region, with clients such as the Chief Executive of the HK Government, Asian Development Bank, and many Asian conglomerates and multinationals. Thomas holds a Ph.D. degree in Business from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He was a worldwide senior partner and Chief Executive-Asia of the Hay Group before founding Vision in Business in 1995.

Business Strategy Formulation and Strategic Organization Structure: Thomas began working in this area in 1989, when he led a HK and UK consulting team in the re-organization of the Policy Branches of the HK Government. Since then, Thomas has worked with many Chief Executives and their top teams to map the future scenarios, re-define their Vision and business strategy, design a new strategic structure and implement major strategy initiatives and change programs.

Leadership Assessment and Development: Thomas is engaged by many leading companies in high growth markets, to help them select and develop their future leaders. Vision in Business has developed and tested a substantial array of innovative, proprietary methodologies and programs in assessment and development of leaders, from senior executives to young talents in the organization.

Strategic Human Resource Advisory: Thomas is a leading expert in job profiling, executive compensation and performance management. He has advised many clients on the design and implementation of innovative policies and systems in these areas.

Hong Kong and Mainland China Clients: Many major organizations with large operations in Hong Kong and Mainland China have been clients of Thomas and Vision in Business. They include the HKSAR Government, Shui On Group, Winnington Group, Urban Renewal Authority, PCCW, C & W Hong Kong Telecom, Mass Transit Railway Corporation, Hang Seng Bank, China Light and Power, Housing Authority, Hong Kong Jockey Club, Hong Kong Airport Authority, Hong Kong Futures Exchange, Orient Overseas Container Lines, and many others.

Multinational Clients: Internationally, his clients include the Asian Development Bank, Chase, Sun Microsystems, Degussa AG, Hoechst Group of Germany, Ciba-Geigy of Switzerland, Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan, Jaya Group of Indonesia, among others.

Public Service: Thomas is an appointed Justice of the Peace in Hong Kong. He served on the Central Policy Unit from 1996-97 and the Public Service Commission of the HK Government from 1994-2003. He was a member of the Barristers Disciplinary Tribunal Panel, Commission on the Pay and Conditions of Service of the Chief Executive of HK Government, and the Standing Committee on Directorate Salaries and Conditions of Service of the Civil Service. Higher education was a major area of public service for Thomas, including Chairmanship of the Council of Institute of Education, Council Member of the University of Science and Technology and the Hong Kong Baptist University, and member of the UGC Higher Education Review Steering Committee.


Po Chi Wu
Adjunct Professor
Po Chi Wu is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. He is also a Visiting Professor and co-founding Executive Director of the Global Innovation Research Center, under the School of Software & Microelectronics, Peking University and an Adjunct Faculty at the University of San Francisco.

Having been a highly successful international venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has lived and worked both in the United States and in Asia, he brings more than 30 years of experience and insight into the challenges of innovation and entrepreneurship.

His work has led to a useful framework to evaluate individuals, teams, and projects - The 5 P’s: Preparation, Patience, Perseverance, Persuasion, and Productivity. Dr. Wu is a co-founder and Managing Director of DragonBridge Capital, an investment advisory firm that focuses on “Cleantech”, information technology, and the life sciences in China. Previously, he was a co-founder and President of Allegro Capital, a successful venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. Before that, he was a partner at Advent International Corporation, then one of the world's largest international firms, where he opened and headed the California office to manage investments in Asia and in the US. His career began in late 1985, when he was invited to establish a venture capital subsidiary of what is now China Development Industrial Bank in Taiwan.

Dr. Wu has lectured at Peking University, Sun Yat Sen University, Mundell International University for Entrepreneurship (Beijing), University of California at Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and Stanford University. He has also been: Advisor to the Guangzhou Municipal Board for International Investment, Director and former President of the Chinese Software Professionals Association (Silicon Valley), a Trustee of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Genetic Medicine at the University of Southern California. For almost 10 years, he was a guest Lecturer in the School of Engineering and served on the Advisory Council of the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley.

Academic Background: Post-doctoral research and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University (1972) and B. A. degrees in Mathematics and Music from the University of California at Berkeley (1966). Po Chi Wu’s family includes several generations of illustrious scholars. His great grand-father was a Hanlin Scholar in the Ching Dynasty. Dr. Wu’s father, Professor Wu, Ta-You, retired from the Presidency of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan at the age of 88. Professor Wu’s epitaph was: “The Father of Modern Physics in China”.

Hal Josephson
Regional Coordinator based in New Zealand
Hal Josephson specializes in international business development, strategic marketing, and special project planning and management services for high-tech businesses. During the past decade, Hal has worked extensively with Asia-Pacific economic development programs focusing on IP-based partnerships and alliances. In addition, Hal is currently the Conference Chair and Host of two annual thought leadership events, the Digital Entertainment Leadership Forum, and the Cyberport Venture Capital Forum in Hong Kong.

From 1997-2000, Mr. Josephson was Executive Director for NewMedia magazine's INVISION Festival, the largest North American awards program honoring creators of digital content in all media, including CD-ROMs, web sites, games and business applications. Hal built this event into a $2M US business. During this same period, Hal was also the primary US consultant and Silicon Valley liaison for Australian Multimedia Enterprise (AME), a $55M AU new media venture fund based in Sydney, Australia.

Prior to this, Hal was Vice President of Infotainment World, producers of the highly successful video gaming conference, Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Before this position, Hal spent two years as President and Executive Producer of the Motorola sponsored Interactive Media Festival, (IMF). This $3.7M corporate event showcased thirty-five of the best digital media projects from North America, Europe and Asia and included the West Coast premiere of NYC's cult Blue Man Group.

For four years, during the early nineties, Hal was the Director of Worldwide Business Development for The 3DO Company. 3DO went public in 1992 and achieved a market cap of $2 billion. During the eighties, Hal was a Boulder, Colorado entrepreneur as co-founder of two IT-related public companies, TeleMedia International, a teleconferencing production and human factors training business and StarCom Inc., a satellite delivered entertainment company.

Hal has industry experience in software licensing, teleconferencing, computer games, satellite communications, broadcasting and cable TV plus specific expertise in international business development with an emphasis on strategic and tactical trans-border marketing. In addition, Hal has a second career in large-scale event design, planning, program development, and production management as well as sponsorship procurement.

Enric Batalla
Regional Coordinator based in Barcelona, Spain
Enric has been a patent broker and consultant in Spain for over 15 years and qualified as an Industrial Engineer specializing in Nuclear and New-energies technologies, at the Polytechnical University of Catalonia (UPC, Spain). He has also a management PDD degree in IESE Business School. He worked for almost five years as COO in manufacturing plants in the fields of hollow-glass production (Rovira, Spain) and lighning appliances (Raak-Cetek, France).

In 1989 Enric participated in the Asco Nuclear Plant OSART project. Founder in 1990 of ICOGEN, one of the first Co-generation Enginering Companies in Spain. He has been an invited professor in the IESE B.S. MBA, teaching on “Strategy, Innovation and Patents”. He has advised in IP matters to some major companies in Spain: Inditex, Ficosa, Indra, Gamesa, Loop.

Enric is a member of the "Barcelona Tech Park Experts Guide" and Licensing Executives Society.

HP Lem
Regional Coordinator based in Malaysia & Singapore
HP is an entreprenuer with over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, in the Silicon Valley and the Asia Pacific regions, encompassing all major areas of the business, from IC design, product development, engineering and operations management, to sales and business development.

He also started various companies in Malaysia and Singapore ranging from R&D, marketing and distribution of packaging material, to trading and recycling materials all related to the semiconductor and electronics industry. Presently he is also the Vice-President of the Malaysian Association of Creativity and Innovation (www.macri.com.my), an NGO promoting an innovation culture beyond the hi-tech sector in the country.

Prior to this, he was the Founder of Nanoflex Sdn Bhd, a startup company developing start-of-the-art technologies in the area of flexible substrates for the FPC and Semiconductor packaging markets. His previous company, Compasstech Resources distributed flexible substrates for 6 years in the Malaysian and Singapore market.for Compass Technology Ltd, a leading supplier of Flexible substrate in HK. The regional sales ranges from RM20M-RM36M. Another company which he started, Semicycle Singapore, which recycles IC trays, became part of the Peak International, which subsequently listed in an IPO in 2000 in NASDAQ.

He started his career in Silicon Valley as an electronic engineer, in 1980s, and spend 10 years working there in operations, engineering and management roles with leading IC companies including AMD, IDT, and EXEL Microelectronics.. HP has extensive business networks in Singapore and Malaysia, Hong Kong, Pearl River Delta, and China. He received his B.S.EE from the University of Birmingham, UK in 1978.