As we ramp-up our operations, it is clear that strengthening the core of our management is key. It is therefore a pleasure to have KO Chia appointed as Chairman of the Board. KO’s background and accomplishments speak heaps of him as a person. We appreciate that today many big words are used to describe big personalities however, in this case, they are fully justified!
KO is a Tech and Finance industry heavyweight with over 30 years of experience in international business operations, technology pioneering, and private-equity & venture capital investments. His main roles included senior leadership positions with Hewlett-Packard ranging from manufacturing, product management and sales management. He subsequently moved to do a stint at Apple Computer (way back then) when Apple was the underdog but already showing the signs of what would become such a Giant of a tech company. He then went on to build Premisys Communications, Inc. a venture-backed hi-tech start-up and taking it to a successful IPO (Unicorn level). Prior to becoming president of the Hong Kong Venture Capital Association and joining Grace Financial’s executive management, he was Managing Director at Walden International, a US$1.6B, US-Asia private equity venture capital firm. In short, there’s nothing KO doesn’t know about business.
So, it was evident to the founding team that KO was the only Chairman for Pycom.
As team with big ambitions that, and while only in its first year of existence, we’ve already set the groundworks for taking on the entire IoT the industry with faster, more flexible and lower cost (sometimes even free) products and solutions. We’re proud of our innovative developer-to-production multi-network boards and have made a promise to everyone that this is only the beginning!. So, whilst we focus on disrupting the IoT industry, it is important we can rely on someone like KO to bring the rest of the skill-sets required to successfully manage our business. Through his contribution, he ensures that despite our rebel spirit, we follow best-practice standards and adhere to corporate governance. After all, we just like innovating 🙂
It’s refreshing to work with a hands-on Chairman like KO and we’d like to highlight two further values KO brings to the party and which we are not seeing enough in today’s business environment: that of humility and balance. KO is our Chairman but also our mentor who ensures we keep our learning agility high while allowing us to tap into his multi faceted experience – something you can never have enough of.
Thank you KO for joining the team!
Fred, Bettina and Daniel