Executive Officers

Lixin Zheng, 56
CEO, CFO, Chairman & Director

Mr. Zheng has served as our Chief Financial Officer since October 3, 2022, and our Chief Executive Officer since February, 2023. Mr. Zheng has over 30 years of extensive practical experience in TMT, investment and financing, manufacturing and fastmoving chain circulation in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States and Canada. He also possesses successful financing and IPO planning and practical experience in global capital markets for acquisitions, mergers, restructuring and financial public relations of public and private companies, with practical ability and successful cases of market value maintenance. Mr. Zheng served as a financial director and the CFO for Ajisen (China) Holdings Co., Ltd. (0538.HK) in Hong Kong from November 2006 to November 2008, one of the leading fast casual restaurant chain operators in Asia. He has successfully operated and raised HKD 1.8 billion for Ajisen, which was rated as the best medium-sized enterprise listing project in 2007 by the Asian Finance magazine and he was interviewed by the Bloomberg channel during his works at Ajisen. He also led the successful business merger transaction for Ajisen (Shenzhen) with a transactional value of RMB 450 million. From December 2008 to May 2013, Mr. Zheng served at Rinpak Technology Holding Limited at the CFO in Shanghai and Taipei office, and was in charge of the company’s IPO works. Under his lead, Rinpak Technology successfully listed on Taiwan Stock Exchange with an offering size of USD 50 million, as well as a pre-IPO raised funds of RMB 200 million. From June 2013 to November 2018, Mr. Zheng served as the chief financial officer and the financial advisor to several companies, including Qianbei Technology Group, Roman Garden Services Group, Fubon Group/Ruji Medical Group, Nanda Pharmaceutical Technology Development Co. Ltd. and several other public and private companies. Mr. Zheng has been serving as the CFO at Huijie Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. since July 2020, being in charge of the company’s financial management. He served as the CFO at Jinke Investment Holding Group in its Shanghai and Hong Kong office from December 2018 to June 2020, being in charge of the company’s financing and business merger projects. Mr. Zheng also worked at Siemens Beijing office as the accountant and McDonald China office as the accounting manager from 1989 to 1992, and at System Software Associates (SSA) China office and Chicago office as the senior consultant from 1992 to 2000. From 2000 to 2006, he founded Insys International Company limited in Ottawa, Canada and served as the CEO. Mr. Zheng has decades of experience in the corporate finance, global capital market, listing planning, financial PR, market outlook operations, overall planning and worked as the CFO for several pharmaceutical, medical and health technology companies. Mr. Zheng is a member of Fellow-Institute of Public Accountants (FIPA) and Fellow Financial Accountant (FFA) in UK. He is also a distinguished lecturer of Overseas Education College of Shanghai JiaoTong University in China. Mr. Zheng holds a B.A. in economics from Shenzhen University. He also holds a Unix/C/C++ Certificate from Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

Board of Directors

John O’Donnell, 76
Independent Director

Mr. O’Donnell served as a former director of research for the Online Trading Academy, a brokerage firm in Irvine, California with US$500 million per day in cleared retail equities executions since its incorporation in 1997. In this role, he delivered a combination of educational and corporate experience that has been instrumental in making Online Trading Academy today one of the premier trading schools in the world. His extensive diversified management and consulting experience has been a key ingredient in Online Trading Academy’s fast global growth and multiple industry recognition and awards. He has often been featured on financial web portals and television networks such as CNBC, CNN, and MarketWatch. Mr. O’Donnell’s focus and thoughts on issues such as historic boom/bust business cycles and the potential coming volatility in the credit bubble in the “Globalization 3.0 Era” has also been featured in financial focused newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, Traders Journal and EQUITIES magazine, etc. Mr. O’Donnell is frequently a keynote speaker at global finance expos including Trade2Win, Online Traders Expo, London IX Expos, Brazil Active Traders Expos, World’s First Virtual Online Traders Expo, Canadian Financial Forums, and The MoneyShow. From 1986 to 1997, Mr. O’Donnell founded and served as its CEO at Double Win Capital Network, boutique investment banker for emerging growth high tech companies. He was recognized as Finalist in Entrepreneur of the Year in Orange County, Calif in 1987 and 1988 as awarded by INC magazine and Ernst and Young. During his works at Double Win Capital Network, he financed over US$150+ million in merger/acquisition/equity placements for 6 companies. From 1979 to 1986, Mr. O’Donnell founded and served as its CEO at Republic Resources, Inc, a US$75 million public company who was one of the world’s largest grower of jojoba oil plantations. Republic Resources developed and syndicated US$20 million in farming syndications through the independent broker/dealer community. From 1972 to 1978, Mr. O’Donnell founded and served as its CEO at Precious Metals Exchange, Inc, a refiner of precious metal scrap and retailer of bullion and coins to investors. The company was acquired by Penn Pacific Corp, a public company in California in 1978 and was the one of the most active traded equities on NASDAQ in 1979. From 1968 to 1972, Mr. O’Donnell served Milwaukee Public School System as a physical sciences teacher. Mr. O’Donnell holds a B.S. from Southwest Baptist University.

Mitchell Cariaga, 63
Independent Director

From August 2019 to February 2022, Mr. Cariaga served as an independent director for Brilliant Acquisition Corporation (BRLI.NASDAQ), a SPAC company which has closed a US$46,000,000 sized IPO in 2020. Since 2007, he has been the president at Orange Grove Trading Company, a consulting firm that provides consulting services for international capital markets. From 2008 to 2015, Orange Grove was retained by Title Trading to build and manage Title Trading’s international trading teams in four countries and multiple capital markets. While on this assignment, he worked in the development and execution of algorithmic trading strategies with complex risk parameters that integrated human understanding and analysis with algorithmic computer processes. As part of this role, Mr. Cariaga also managed cross functional teams responsible for daily risk metrics and led a market risk management modeling team for various markets involving commodities, Foreign Exchange, equities, and bonds. From 2002 to 2008, he worked at Asian American Financial Insurance Services (AAFIS) in Shenyang, China, where he led the development of international trading desks in China, with over 600 traders across a broad variety of asset classes. There, Mr. Cariaga developed a market risk management modeling team for the company as the technology lead for algorithmic trading, and developed the China based business for four different leveraged asset classes in the stocks, futures, and options markets in the U.S. From 1998 to 2002, he managed his own proprietary capital, balancing various risk factors to establish a trading model with a high confidence probability rating. During that time Mr. Cariaga also was asked by the Online Trading Academy to provide formal training for its team members. Presently Mr. Cariaga serves as a General Partner for Citrus Grove Capital, LLC, a U.S. based hedge fund. Mr. Cariaga holds a master’s degree in theology from Grace Theological Seminary and a bachelor’s degree in history from California State University.

Lauren Simmons, 28
Independent Director

Ms. Simmons is an equity trader who started her career in finance in May of 2017 with Rosenblatt Securities on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Ms. Simmons was recognized by Ebony’s Power 100 list in 2018, as well as by Politico which awarded her as among its Women of Impact in 2018. Since achieving notoriety in 2018, Ms. Simmons has been featured in various media outlets including Forbes, Politico, CNBC, Bloomberg and The Cut. Stemming from her financial knowledge and ability to quickly build relationships in financial markets, Ms. Simmons has built a broad network in private and public financial and consumer markets. Specifically, Ms. Simmon’s commentary, experience as an equities trader, combined with her market and experiential insights has led to her success as a brand leader for women in finance. In particular, Ms. Simmons has built partnerships with Ford, LinkedIn, Express, Champs, Isagenix and Pure Leaf. Ms. Simmons is also a financial contributor to Bloomberg, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, and other financial media outlets. She is the author of a new book addressing professional development and finance which has been accepted for publication by Harper Collins. Ms. Simmons has also headlined major events such as Aspen Ideas Festival, Sina Finance in China, Disney’s Dreamers Academy, and keynote at Harvard, etc. Currently, Ms. Simmons is hosting and producing the show GOING PUBLIC for Entrepreneur.com. Ms. Simmons has also launched the podcast Mind, Body, Wealth with Lauren Simmons, a top ranked Spotify Original Podcast. Ms. Simmons is currently a member of the advisory board at Robinhood Markets, Inc. (HOOD.NASDAQ) and a former board member at ConsciouslyUnbiased. Ms. Simmons holds a B.S. in Psychology from Kennesaw State University and concentrated her undergraduate studies in genetics and statistics.