Richard Tan is the President of Greater China for Apexe Global; whose mission is to help its portfolio scaleups go global. Its highly effective globalization programme has empowered nine IPOs and created 18 unicorns worldwide. Many local governments around the world are also engaging Apexe Global to help build up and strengthen its startup ecosystems.

Mr. Tan’s main motivation in setting up Apexe Global stemmed from his prior experiences in founding and building up InnoSpace into one of China’s most effective innovation platforms. InnoSpace had hailed six unicorns and created 13 star ventures whose valuation exceeded Rmb100mn within 12 months of their inception. Its first investment fund also enjoyed a DPI of 0.8; making it China’s top 20% best performing angel investor. However, despite such track records, Mr. Tan had recognized that a strong inclusion of quality foreign scaleups into China’s startup ecosystem would be critical for China’s technological advancement. Thus, he founded Apexe Global in China; seeking to help upgrade China’s startup scene and bring its portfolio scaleups into China.

Prior to setting up Apexe Global and InnoSpace, Mr. Tan was the General Manager for Hong Kong listed developer, Shui On Group. His charter then was to formulate and help champion Shui On’s technology-play strategy with an alignment to its real estate business. Mr. Tan was successful in building up a vibrant and robust industry ecosystem for Shui On’s Knowledge & Innovation Community project (KIC), which effectively enabled the project to achieve full occupancy (at high rental) within 12 months of building up the ecosystem.

Before coming to China, Mr. Tan was the Vice Consul for the Singapore Consulate in Mumbai, India. He was double-heading as the Regional Director for the Singapore Economic Development Board.