<p>Ted Teng was appointed president and chief executive officer of The Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd., in September 2008. In his position, Mr. Teng oversees and directs all aspects of business strategy, operations, and performance growth for the premier luxury hospitality organization. The company, which represents over 450 predominantly independent hotels, provides global sales, marketing and distribution services through an expansive network of worldwide sales and reservations offices. Based at the company's headquarters in New York, Mr. Teng also holds a seat on the board of directors.</p> <p>Since joining The Leading Hotels of the World, Mr. Teng has developed and begun executing a detailed five-year business plan which focuses on strengthening the brand and driving increased revenue to member hotels. Within the plan, he has also asserted the crucial importance of dedication and adherence to quality, in the firm belief that by elevating the overall level among the collection, all hotels will benefit. Taking as his motto "Preserve, Enhance, and Invent," he seeks to honor and uphold the more than eight-decade-old traditions of the organization, while innovating to achieve greater strength and success in the future.</p> <p>Immediately before joining the organization, Mr. Teng was the principal and chief executive officer of Prime Opus Partners, LP, a hotel investment and operations firm he founded in 2006. In 2005/2006, he served as executive-in-residence and was actively involved through various volunteer leadership roles at the School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University.</p> <p>Throughout his 30-year career in the hospitality industry, Mr. Teng has been responsible for the growth of some of the most prominent brands in the world. For five years he was president, chief operating officer of Wyndham International, Inc., where he oversaw the core branded hotel products, as well as the company's third-party management operations, comprised of over 200 properties generating USD 2.5 billion in annual revenue.</p> <p>He also served as president, Asia-Pacific, for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., immediately following the merger of Starwood Lodging, Westin, and Sheraton. He oversaw the integration of that company's branded hotel operations in the region, and was responsible for the operating and financial performance of over 70 hotels and resorts in 17 countries. New projects executed during Mr. Teng's tenure included the St. Regis in Shanghai, the first international W in Sydney, the highest quality Four Points Hotel in Sydney, the Sheraton in Sapporo, and the Westin Kyoto.</p> <p>Prior to the Starwood merger, Mr. Teng was the president of Asia-Pacific for Westin Hotels, where he was credited with having achieved significant growth in the number of hotels, including the launch of notable new flagships in Sydney, Melbourne, Guam, Kuala Lumpur, Awaji Island, Taipei, and Shanghai. Before coming to Westin, he was with ITT Sheraton, where he served for 14 years in a variety of senior and strategic capacities in operations, finance and development in North America, Hawaii and Asia. Most notably, Mr. Teng successfully negotiated the first ITT Sheraton equity investment in China in a multi-use project that included today's St. Regis Beijing.</p> <p>Ted Teng is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. He has an MBA from the University of Hawaii. Born in Shanghai, China, he grew up in Hong Kong and emigrated to the U.S. at age 13. He became an U.S. citizen at age 18. </p>
Jean-Yves Chow is an Industry Analyst at Rabobank. In this position, he acts as an advisor and industry analyst for Rabobank and corporate clients in north East Asia (China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea).
Prior to this role, Chow was an Industrial manager at EVIALIS where he worked in the Animal Nutrition & Health area.
Jean-Yves Chow received a Master's degree in food business & technology from Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs des Techniques des Industries Agricoles et Alimentaires.
Christopher Fong is the Education Vertical Lead at Google.com. In this role, he leads the advertising division's efforts in the education industry. He also volunteers with Google.org on initiatives to find investments to develop utility-scale renewable energy and to aid small and medium-size enterprises in the developing world.
Before joining Google, Fong worked in business development and marketing roles for Expedia's Seattle, Dallas, Toronto and Las Vegas offices.
Reshma Saujani is a lawyer, politician and founder of the tech organization Girls Who Code. She was previously the Deputy Public Advocate at the Office of the New York City Public Advocate. Reshma Saujani attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she graduated in 1997 with majors in Political Science and Speech Communication. She attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she received a Master of Public Policy in 1999, and Yale Law School, where she received her Juris Doctor in 2002.
Vijay Nathan is a Product Manager with Apartment Therapy. Previously, he was the Co-Founder and CEO of NoshOnIt. After realizing that he was much better suited to be cooking at home instead of in a professional kitchen, Vijay traded in his chef hat for an apron and has committed himself to helping everyone realize that they can cook great food at home. You\'ll often find him traversing the city for the best ethnic eats or experimenting in the kitchen with new cuisines. Prior to NoshOn.It, Vijay was the Co-Founder and CEO of MyReci.com, an online recipe box application that allows you to manage, save, and share all of your recipes from any website in one place. MyReci was born out of Vijay\'s entrepreneurship and brand management focus at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, where he received his MBA. Vijay Nathan received his undergraduate degree from Tufts University and his MBA from Cornell University.
Brad Katsuyama is a financial services executive, working as the president, CEO and co-founder of the IEX, the Investors Exchange. Brad has over 14 years of experience in the securities trading industry. Brad was formerly the Global Head of Electronic Sales and Trading at RBC Capital Markets. In this role, he was responsible for multiple global teams including: electronic sales, electronic trading, algorithmic trading, market structure strategy, client implementation and product management. Brad\'s prior management roles at RBC were Head of US Cash Equity Trading, Head of US Hedge Fund Coverage, and Head of US Technology Trading. Brad Katsuyama is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University.
Romi Kher is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Baruch College with expertise in technology startups. His research interests focus on decision making under uncertainty and how differing risk perceptions impact team behavior. He has a PhD from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker and economist. A former professor of economics, he is famous for his successful application of the concept of microcredit, the extension of small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus is also the founder of Grameen Bank.
In 2006, Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In the prize announcement The Norwegian Nobel Committee mentioned: "Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty."
Yunus himself has received several other national and international honors. He is the author of Banker to the Poor and a founding board member of Grameen Foundation.
Muhammad Yunus completed his BA and MA in economics at Dhaka University. He was offered a Fulbright scholarship in 1965 to study in the United States. He obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt University.
Leila Janah is the Founder and CEO of Samasource, a non-profit social business that gives digital work to impoverished people around the world.
Prior to Samasource, Janah was a a Visiting Scholar with the Stanford Program on Global Justice and Australian National University's Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. She was a founding Director of Incentives for Global Health, an initiative to increase R&D spending on diseases of the poor, and a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners (now Booz & Co.). She has also worked at the World Bank and as a travel writer for Let's Go in Mozambique, Brazil, and Borneo.
Leila Janah received a BA from Harvard.