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OCTOBER
27, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 42 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK
Asia's
Digital Elite
David
Mok |
| Chairman
and CEO, Lemon Age: 37 Prized Possession: 1960s
and Œ70s electric/digital watch collection "to compensate
for me sometimes not being on time". E-mail: david@lemon-asia.com |
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The
story of how David Mok founded Lemon, Hong Kong's trailblazing Web design
firm, begins one evening six years ago. That's when he ran into an acquaintance
who introduced her husband, Christian Rhomber, owner of the 97 Group restaurant
circuit. "Christian and I hit it off, and he ended up convincing me to start
my own company," says Mok. "He even sublet me a room in the 97 office on
the spot." Lemon has since racked up an impressive list of clients and awards
and is foraying into Asia's nascent broadband ad arena. Mok is now also
a close friend of Rhomber and a partner in the 97 Group. "What an auspicious
evening," Mok says of that night. "I should look it up in my horoscope!"
Hanson
Cheah
|
| Executive
Director, AsiaTech Ventures Age: 35 Childhood dream:
Soccer player E-mail: hanson@hk.net |
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You've
gotta hand it to Hanson Cheah. The football lovin', guitar pickin' lead
partner of Hong Kong's first high-tech venture-capital fund remains an influential
force even as competitors from Silicon Valley crowd the field. Three years
after its launch, AsiaTech has several successful investments under its
belt, the biggest of which is Phone.com, a company that links mobile phones
to the Web. Phone.com's market capitalization went through the roof after
the company went public; it is now merging with Software.com, a supplier
of infrastructure software for Internet service providers, in a $7-billion
deal. With a mechanical-engineering degree from MIT, Penang-born Cheah worked
for a series of electronics and computer companies, including Sun Microsystems,
before making the switch to the investment side. It's a decision he has
not regretted. A strummer during his off-hours, Cheah picks his 1966 Riochi
Matsuka Rosewood top classical guitar as his most cherished possession —
after his two sons, of course.
William
Lo
|
| Chairman
and CEO, Netalone.com Age: 39 Personal hero: Martin
Luther King Jr. E-mail: drwlo@netalone.com |
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Genetic
engineering may seem a long way from Internet banking, but when William
Lo set aside his Ph.D. in molecular biology to move into the business arena,
he was merely exchanging one cutting-edge technology for another. At Hong
Kong Telecom, he created Netvigator, the second most-visited website in
Hong Kong, and developed iTV, the world's first commercial broadband interactive
TV service. At Citibank, he launched Hong Kong's first online banking service.
Although his projects have met with mixed success — iTV is still struggling
to gain market share two years after its launch — they haven't completely
dissuaded Lo from taking risks. Last year, he resigned from his $1-million-a-year
job at Citibank to take over a small electronics firm, which he renamed
Netalone.com. Like its founder, the company has been remaking itself, starting
out as an e-vester in B2C websites before morphing into an e-business enabler.
His background in genetic tweaking, it seems, makes constant changes irresistible
to Lo.
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People
who are not lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department would not normally think
of standing up to Bill Gates. Juliet Wu is one of the select few who have
done precisely that. Already a rising star when she was recruited by Microsoft
(China) in 1998 — she had been with IBM for 12 years — she quit
a little over a year later to join China's state-owned TCL. As a general
manager at Microsoft in Beijing, Wu had been the highest-ranking local Chinese
executive in a leading foreign company. That position gave her the perfect
vantage point from which to savage the U.S. software giant in her best-selling
memoir. The book, published after her resignation, criticized Microsoft
for its arrogance and unwillingness to adapt to local ways — and turned
public sentiment against the software giant in a potentially crucial market.
Wu is now heading up TCL's Internet strategy.
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E-vesting: Teaching your
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Net Gains: Korea's NCsoft
is winning big in the gaming market
Tech Index: Bears ravage
Asian technology and internet stocks
B2B: Is Japan the sleeping giant of electronic
trading, or is the country just sleeping?
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