Team | HashKey

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HashKey Team

HashKey’s leadership team brings together the trusted track record of decades of institutional investment experience in regulated markets with an unrelenting passion for fintech innovation.

Visionary Leadership

Dr Xiao Feng

Chairman

As Chairman of the Board, Dr. Xiao oversees and leads the Group’s activities and strategic direction. He is also currently Vice Chairman and Executive Director of China Wanxiang Holding, and Chairman and CEO of Wanxiang Blockchain. With more than 25 years of experience in the securities and asset management industry, he was previously Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of Bosera Asset Management, one of the largest asset management companies in Mainland China.

Michel Lee

Executive President

Michel leads the Group’s activities and has spearheaded the growth of HashKey across Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and other locations since its inception. With more than 25 years of international investment banking experience, he brings deep expertise in capital-raising, new product developments and M&A transactions to the digital asset management business. Having worked in London, Tokyo, Beijing and Hong Kong, he joined HashKey Group from UBS, where he was Head of APAC Capital Markets, Head of China Investment Banking and a Board Director of UBS Securities. At UBS he pioneered numerous new derivatives and alternative investment products and business models.

Michel holds an MSc in Computer Science from Imperial College London.

Senior Management

Colin Zhong

CEO of HashKey PRO

Colin brings nearly 25 years’ experience in trading and financial markets. Prior to joining HashKey Group, he was Head of Global Markets at State Street Bank, and before that APAC Head of Trading in Fixed Income and FX at UBS as well as Deutsche Bank.

Deng Chao

CEO of HashKey Capital and HashKey Singapore

As one of the earliest investors in blockchain and cryptocurrencies in Asia, Deng Chao (DC) has over a decade’s experience in FinTech asset management. Having previously served as a Senior Manager at Bosera Asset Management, China Wanxiang Holding and DataYes, he is also an early founding member of Wanxiang Blockchain Labs. DC holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Hong Kong.

Leo Li

CEO of HashQuark

Leo has more than 12 years of experience in blockchain technology, FinTech and cloud computing. A holder of several patents for distributed computing, Leo founded China’s first innovative blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform. He is also Head of financial cloud and intelligent investment research at DataYes.

Andy Dan

Head of HashKey Japan

Andy was previously Product Director at Wanxiang Blockchain. With more than seven years’ experience in the blockchain industry, he started his career as a Software Engineer at SONY Group in Tokyo. Andy has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Jilin University.

David Leahy

COO of HashKey PRO

Chief Operating Officer, David Leahy will be responsible for overseeing the core operations for the Group’s Exchange Business, as well as developing longer-term growth strategies for the Group.

David joins from J.P. Morgan in Hong Kong, where he was most recently Managing Director and Head of the Financial Sponsors Group for Asia (Private Bank) having previously been the Head of Prime Finance Distribution for Asia at the investment bank. David has further served in various senior financing roles in alternative investments at Credit Suisse and has worked in Hong Kong, Sydney and London, leading the build-out and growth of several business lines. He graduated from the University College Cork with a bachelor’s degree in Law and qualified as a Barrister-at-Law at the Kings Inns, Ireland.

Ben El-Baz

Head of Ecosystems

Ben leads HashKey Group’s strategic partnerships, blockchain applications and asset tokenisation projects, and post-investment management of a US-based tokenised securities firm. Ben is also an Advisor to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Bank for International Settlements’ projects on tokenised financial products. With over 13 years of experience in Silicon Valley, Mainland China and Hong Kong, he started his career as a derivatives trader, then as a China cross-borders corporate finance analyst, before moving into technology product management and business development, serving Big Tech clients like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

Ben is a graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he earned his Master’s degree in Management and currently leads the university’s largest working group on blockchain applications.

Nejteh Demirian

Head of Business Development

Nejteh has over 10 years of experience in investment management and technoloy. Prior to HashKey, he was a Portfolio Manager and founding member of Hong Kong family office Fountainhead Partners, managing multi-asset portfolios across various asset classes. He is also a Co-Founder of an incubator building SaaS and digital asset projects.

He holds a double degree, triple major in Engineering, Finance and Economics from the University of Sydney.

Wilfree Ho

Head of Custody

Jaline Han

Head of Marketing and Client Strategy

Jaline is responsible for building and developing all facets of HashKey Group’s marketing and client strategy initiatives. Prior to HashKey, she spent more than two decades in the traditional finance space, holding senior roles in investment banking, capital markets, sales and trading, private equity, investment management at J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, Deustche Bank, and the Royal Bank of Scotland among others.

As an active investor and participant in the blockchain community since early 2020, Jaline is a firm proponent of how blockchain technology can revolutionise industries and the way companies conduct business. Jaline has a Bachelor of Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Team Leaders

Eric Zhu

Chief Financial Officer

Eric has more than 18 years of senior financial management experience and led large finance teams at numerous technology and internet businesses. He served as Vice President of Finance at Meituan, responsible for its corporate financial strategies, cash management, all-round financial support, and also acted as Head of Finance for one of its key business groups. Prior to that, Eric held senior roles at various market-leading technology and internet platforms, including as Senior Finance Director at Baidu, Finance Director at Amazon China as well as other senior positions at Dell and Motorola Inc.

Eric holds a Master’s degree in Accounting from Nankai University, and is a Certified Public Accountant in China.

Jeff Lu

Chief Technology Officer

As Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Jeff will oversee and lead HashKey Group’s technology and IT security teams to facilitate and realise the company’s technology and business development vision and strategies.

Jeff brings a wealth of experience working at various market-leading technology and internet platforms. He most recently served as Group CTO in VipShop, where he led a technology team of 1,300 and was responsible for the company’s infrastructure and strategic direction, focusing on big data analytics, system resiliency and improving supply chain systems. Prior to that, he was CTO at YY Inc, Senior Director at Baidu and Software Engineer at Google.

Jeff holds a Master's and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Fudan University and Wuhan University respectively.

Anna Liu

Head of Legal

Anna joined HashKey Group in 2018. She was a Senior Legal Counsel at Tencent, and prior to that worked at Skadden, a leading U.S. based international law firm. With a focus on financial innovation, FinTech and internet sectors, Anna has over 10 years of experience in private equity and investment funds, cross-border investment and M&A, Hong Kong and Overseas Capital Markets.

Anna holds a PRC BAR qualification and a LLM degree from the University of San Francisco.

Byron Wong

Head of Compliance

Byron oversees all regulatory compliance functions of HashKey Group and its subsidiaries. With nearly two decades’ experience in compliance, he has held Head of Comliance and other senior roles at various asset managers, including Ping An of China Asset Management (Hong Kong), China Re Asset Management (Hong Kong) and GF Asset Management.

Byron holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Professional Accounting from the City University of Hong Kong and a Bachelor’s Degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Richard Lai

Chief Risk Officer

Richard has over 30 years of experience in the financial industry. He started his career as a quant and a fund manager at Barclays Global Investor (now Blackrock). Subsequently, he had taken senior risk management roles including chief risk officer and regional head at different global organizations such as BZW, UBS, Bank of America, Daiwa Securities and Standard Chartered Bank as well as two other Chinese financial institutions. He also worked at Citibank for the Asia Equity Business, responsible for some of trading, structuring and trade execution activities. In addition to Hong Kong, he worked in United States and Japan.

Richard earned his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering (Aerospace) from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in United States. He also earned two master’s degrees, one in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering and the other in Operations Research, from Stanford University.

Senior Advisors to the Board

TF Cheng

Senior Advisor and Director, Financial Services and Governance

TF brings over two decades of experience in global investment markets. Previously Managing Director and Head of Greater China at BNP Paribas Management, TF is also an angel investor in FinTech, BioTech and consumer tech.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in economics and political economy from the University of California, Berkeley.

James H. Boettcher

Senior Advisor, Venture Capital

James is a Founding Partner of Focus Ventures in 1997, and mainly leads Focus’ business development efforts for its US portfolio companies in Asia. He was also Co-Founder and Managing Director of investment banking boutique Amsterdam Pacific Corporation (APC).

With decades of experience and a successful track record in expansion-stage investing, James was recently highlighted in the upper quartile of the AlwaysOn VC 100 List, and ranked #37 on Forbes magazine list of the Top 100 Most Powerful Venture Capitalists in 2011. He is also a Senior Advisor to Wanxiang Group.

WK Chim

Senior Advisor, Risk Management and Internal Control

WK Chim joins HashKey Group as Senior Advisor to the Board, focusing on providing independent assessment and advice on the risk frameworks and policies matters across the Group.

WK has more than 30 years of international banking experience and specialises in risk management and internal control, with a particular emphasis on credit risk, market risk, corporate governance and capital management. He currently serves as Independent Non-Executive Director of OCBC Wing Hang Bank and chairs the Bank’s Risk Management Committee. WK’s other previous board experiences included serving as Independent Non-Executive Director for Standard Chartered Bank (China) and for HDR Global Trading Ltd (owner and operator of the BitMEX trading platform). He was the Chief Credit Officer at Bank of China’s Beijing head office from 2007 to 2015.

Dr Xiao Feng

Chairman