Executive Officers

Young Cho, 49 [Appointed Director on 6/20/24] [Appointed CEO 12/27/24]
Chief Executive Officer and Director

Currently, Mr. Cho is Founder, CEO and a board member of Blockhouse Digital Holdings LP, an asset management firm that specializes in collateralized lending and yield generating strategies in the crypto markets. From August 2022 to January 2024, Mr. Cho served as chief financial officer of Swirlds Labs, which performs software development. Prior to Swirlds Labs, Mr. Cho was chief financial officer of Hedera Hashgraph LLC, a proof-of-stake public network powered by hashgraph consensus, where he served from April 2021 to August 2022. While at Hedera, Mr. Cho served as the chief financial officer and a member of the board of directors of Mount Rainier Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: RNER), a Nasdaq listed SPAC that acquired HUB Cyber Security for $1.2 billion in 2023, from February 2021 to March 2023. Prior to Hedera, Mr. Cho was chief investment officer of Abra, a digital consumer wallet where users can buy, sell, and earn rewards on their cryptocurrency holdings, from April 2020 to April 2021. Prior to Abra, Mr. Cho was chief financial officer of Celsius Network from April 2019 to January 2020 and chief financial officer of Alt Lending from January 2018 to April 2019, both companies were involved in the lending of cryptocurrencies. Prior to that, Mr. Cho held several positions in investment banks. Mr. Cho was an Executive Director at UBS Private Finance from March 2010 to May 2012, responsible for originating loans for M&A, capex, and working capital for medium sized private companies and for Ultra HNW clients. Prior to UBS, Mr. Cho was co-founder and Managing Director at Newtonian Capital, a multi-strategy hedge fund focusing on event-driven strategies based in Hong Kong. Prior to Newtonian, Mr. Cho was a Director at Citigroup Global Special Situations Group, where he invested Citigroup’s proprietary capital in the debt and equity of distressed corporates and special situation investments. Mr. Cho started his career as an analyst at Salomon Brothers Fixed Income Quantitative Research group. Mr. Cho has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell, a Masters in Financial Engineering from Cornell, and a MPA in Economic Policy Management from Columbia.

Kwong Cho Ho, 38 [Appointed CFO 1/3/25]
Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Kwong, had an extensive career at Deloitte & Touche (“Deloitte”) Hong Kong and London, a global consulting firm, from 2009 to 2021. At Deloitte, he was a Director of the Cross Broader M&A Advisory Group focused on the consumer business industry. Mr. Kwong is a qualified ICAEW Chartered Accountant. Mr. Kwong holds a degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of Manchester in England..

Jin-Goon Kim, 54 [Appointed CFO 3/28/24] [Resigned as CEO and CFO on 6/19/24]
Chairman, former CEO and former CFO

Mr. Kim has two decades of senior leadership experience in private equity investment and as a serial transformational CEO in industry leading public and private companies. He has made important industry contributions and notable achievements as a CEO, which have been recognized by the Outstanding Growth award at the 2009 TPG Annual CEO Conference, 2009 Dealership Group of the Year and 2012 Most Innovative Business Model from 21^st Century Media Group, a leading Chinese financial media group, and 2010 Top Ten Men of the Year in the Auto Retail Industry in a forum co-sponsored by top Chinese media and industry associations. Immediately prior to founding TLGY Holdings in May 2021, Mr. Kim focused on global, high growth investments with strong potential to benefit from attractive emerging macro trends and in which he could apply his experience implementing business transformation to drive value creation. Since 2018, Mr. Kim has served as an independent director of the board and on the nomination committee of DongDu International Group. From 2006 to 2016 Mr. Kim was with TPG Capital, a leading global private equity firm, where he served as a Partner and a member of its Asia investment review committee. In his capacity as a TPG partner, Mr. Kim also served as a CEO or transformation leader of multiple TPG portfolio companies, often in parallel. Mr. Kim’s investment and operational focus was co-leading TPG’s four major transformational investments across China’s core consumer sectors. Each of the four investments had a differentiated value creation angle in the form of a disruptive business model and/or technology; they collectively returned well over a billion dollars to TPG’s investors (namely, about US$700 million from China Grand Auto, roughly US$700 million from Unitrust, and over US$200 million collectively for Li Ning and Daphne). From 2012 to 2014, Mr. Kim served as CEO and Vice Chairman of Li Ning Company Limited, a leading sportswear brand in China with more than US$2 billion of annual sales in 2020, where he devised and launched a brand transformation that helped salvage the company from financial distress and laid the foundation for its ultimate revival as a leading brand and a company that today has a market capitalization greater than US$30 billion. Mr. Kim served from 2011 to 2015 as a Board member of Daphne International Holdings Limited, a leading women’s footwear brand in China, where he led the shoe industry’s first successful wholesale implementation of fast retail and digitization of supply chain management that sharply uplifted sales, profits, and market capitalization of what had been a stagnant business prior to his engagement. Mr. Kim from 2007 to 2011 served as CEO and Vice Chairman of China Grand Automotive Services Group Co. Ltd, during which time he helped pioneer the company’s retail roll-up in China and the digitization of the company’s management system to grow the company’s sales by seven times and to take it from a #11 mid-size platform in China to the #1 auto retail and services company both in China and in the world. Within a few years thereafter, the company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and reached a market capitalization of approximately US$15 billion. Mr. Kim also served from 2009 to 2010 as a Board member of UniTrust Group, a leading Chinese independent equipment leasing company, during which time he helped build a management team and formulate a new strategy that transformed a start-up operation into a large sector leader that would eventually list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at a market capitalization of approximately US$2 billion. Before joining TPG Capital, Mr. Kim served from 2002 to 2006 as President of Dell Korea, the Korean affiliate of Dell, a global leader in hardware, software and services with more than $60 billion in annual sales in 2020. He successfully led the implementation of Dell’s direct model in Korea for the first time, thereby firmly establishing Dell as a leading player in a market where it had previously struggled to secure a meaningful market presence or to build a profitable business. Mr. Kim served from 2000 to 2002 as a Vice President of Internet Business Capital Corporation, a Cambridge, Massachusetts based early-stage venture capital firm that helped found or participated in early investments in successful ventures including Cambridge Technology Partners and Razorfish. Mr. Kim started his career in 1996 in the Seoul and Boston offices of McKinsey & Company, a global management consultancy. Mr. Kim earned an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard College, a diploma from the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre, and an AB in East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Government from Harvard College.

Vikas Desai, 33 [Appointed on 6/20/24] [Resigned on 12/27/2024]
Chief Executive Officer and Director

He has served as a member of the board of directors and the Chief Executive Officer of Achari Ventures Holdings Corp. I (Nasdaq: AVHI) (“Achari Ventures SPAC”), a special purpose acquisition company, since January 2021. In early 2018, he founded Achari Ventures (formerly known as Welcan Capital), a venture capital firm focused on the cannabis industry. Achari Ventures invests in early-stage plant touching and ancillary businesses and currently has a portfolio of 28 companies within the platform. Since 2018, Mr. Desai has been employed by Achari Ventures, which includes the Welcan Strategic Opportunities Fund LP and Achari Ventures Fund I LP. From June 2015 to 2017, Mr. Desai was a private equity investor at Oaktree Capital Management, a $100 billion alternative asset manager, where he completed over $2 billion in transactions. Mr. Desai began his career at Morgan Stanley in the Investment Banking division from July 2013 to June 2015, focusing on real estate mergers and acquisitions and capital markets, where he completed approximately 15 deals representing approximately $15 billion in transaction value. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Finance & Environmental Studies from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Merrick Friedman, 35 [Appointed on 6/20/24] [Resigned on 12/27/2024]
Chief Financial Officer

He has served as the Chief Investment Officer and Corporate Secretary of Achari Ventures SPAC, since February 2021, and has served as a member of Achari Ventures SPAC’s board of directors since October 2021. Mr. Friedman joined Achari Ventures (formerly known as Welcan Capital) in June 2019. Since 2019, Mr. Friedman has been employed by Achari Ventures, which includes the Welcan Strategic Opportunities Fund LP and Achari Ventures Fund I LP. Prior to joining Achari Ventures, Mr. Friedman spent over four years at Long Pond Capital, from January 2015 to early 2019, an approximately $3 billion long/short equity hedge fund focused on fundamental and value-oriented investing. Before joining Long Pond, from 2013 to 2014, Mr. Friedman was at The Raine Group (“Raine”), a global merchant bank. At Raine, he was responsible for providing mergers and acquisitions advisory services and evaluating growth equity investments in the media, entertainment and telecommunications industries. While at Raine, Mr. Friedman completed over $30 billion in transaction value. Mr. Friedman began his career in 2012 at Deutsche Bank in the Natural Resources Investment Banking group. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Theron E. Odlaug, 72 [Resigned]
Co-President

Dr. Odlaug has since 2019 served as a Board Member and fundraiser for the Dravet Syndrome Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising research funds and offering research grants for syndrome-specific research with a novel approach for Dravet syndrome, a rare and catastrophic form of epilepsy beginning in childhood, and related conditions. Since 2021, Dr. Odlaug has served as a Board Member of Ascendia Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceutical company dedicated to developing enhanced formulations of existing drug products and enabling formulations for pre-clinical and clinical stage drug candidates. Since 2006, he has been the Managing Partner of EIR Healthcare Consultants LLC, which provides consulting services to pharmaceutical companies. By way of example, in 2011 he served as an advisor to Takeda in their pre-merger planning for the integration of Nycomed’s operations. Since 2017, he has served as a Partner at Signet Healthcare Partners, a growth-stage healthcare investor with aggregate capital commitments of over $400 million and investments in more than 50 companies. In his role as Partner and Signet Operating Executive, he has been instrumental in two successful exits for Signet. Dr. Odlaug has also served from 2015 to 2017 as CEO and Managing Director of Leon Nanodrugs GmbH, an early-stage nano-technology formulation company, and as a member of its Supervisory Board from 2017 to 2020. From 2017 to 2018, Dr. Odlaug also laterally served as Executive Chairman and Acting CEO of Impopharma Inc, a provider of development services for nasal and pulmonary drug products. From 2014 to 2016, he also served as a Board Member of Apicore US LLC. He was the lead of a special committee of the board that explored an exit for shareholders that ultimately resulted in the company’s 2016 acquisition by Medicure. From 2013 to 2014, Dr. Odlaug also served as Executive Chairman of Cedarburg Hauser Pharmaceuticals Inc, a privately held active pharmaceutical ingredient contract manufacturer. At Cedarburg, Mr. Odlaug was brought in to lead and coordinate the exit process, resulting in successful sale to AMRI in 2014. Prior to joining Signet Healthcare Partners, Dr. Odlaug served from 2011 to 2013 as Executive Chairman and CEO of Planet Biopharmaceuticals Inc., a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company focused on allergy extracts and other allergy control products and portfolio company of Aisling Capital. At Planet, he divested the allergy control products division and led a successful 2013 sale of the allergy extract business to Ares Life Sciences. Prior to joining Planet Biopharmaceuticals, Dr. Odlaug served from 2008 to 2011 as COO, President, and CEO of CyDex Pharmaceuticals Inc., a privately held portfolio company of Signet Healthcare Partners, delivering pharmaceutical products and licensing its technology based upon the Captisol drug formulation technology platform. One product highlight was the completion of the Phase II clinical study of a Captisol formulation of melphalan, now marketed as Evomela. An exit for shareholders was completed in 2011 when the company was acquired by Ligand Pharmaceuticals. From 1992 to 2006, Dr. Odlaug held roles including EVP and COO, at Astellas, a global pharmaceutical company formed by the 2005 merger of Fujisawa and Yamanouchi. Under his watch at Fujisawa, the company launched three hospital products AmBisome, Adenoscan, and Mycamine, and the dermatology product Protopic. He led the team for the divestiture of the generic drug division to APP in 1998 as part of a successful strategy to focus on branded drugs in the USA. Prior to Astellas /Fujisawa, he held a senior leadership role at Bayer AG. Dr. Odlaug earned a PhD in Environmental Health from the University of Minnesota and an MS and BS in Biology from the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Steven Norman, 56 [Resigned]
Co-President, Chief Financial Officer, Executive Director

Mr. Norman is a seasoned Asia-Pacific technology industry executive whose specialties include corporate turnarounds and growth. Mr. Norman has more than 20 years of experience as an executive and a director in the Asia-Pacific technology space. Most recently, Mr. Norman was the Founder of Growth Acumen, a consulting firm focused on helping technology and SaaS companies accelerate growth in Asia-Pacific. From 2008 to 2016, Mr. Norman served as Asia-Pacific Managing Director for Targus, the global leader in notebook cases and technology solutions where he managed all functions across 12 countries and helped grow the revenues and profits of the business significantly. From 2007 to 2011, Mr. Norman served first as the Head of Strategy and Operations and then as a board member from 2008 onwards at a wagering and sports betting company in Australia. From 1993 to 2006, Mr. Norman was part of the Dell Executive Team in Asia Pacific, helping to grow the company from a startup to a multi-billion-dollar business. He helped establish the Dell China business and built the Home & Small Business Division in India. Mr. Norman is also a global thought leader in sales and marketing best practices for technology companies, having written a book on this topic. Mr. Norman completed the Wharton Advanced Management Program (AMP) in 2012 and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Macquarie University.

Board of Directors

Niraj Javeri, 42 [Appointed 12/27/24]
Independent Director

Mr. Javeria is currently the Chief Financial Officer at Lancium Inc, an energy technology company building infrastructure and technical solutions that enable gigawatt scale data centers to be built on its campuses. He is based in San Francisco, California. Previously, Mr. Javeri was the Vice President of Strategy at Zymergen, a science and material innovation company. Between 2010 and 2019 Mr. Javeri worked for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (“KKR”) (NYSE: KKR) in New York, Sydney, and San Francisco as part of the Special Situations team, where he sourced, diligenced, executed, and monitored investments made across a number of funds managed by KKR. Previously, Mr. Javeri was with One East Partners in London and New York, where he invested across industries in event-driven and value equities, distressed debt, and private deals. Prior to that, he worked at Goldman Sachs & Co in the Principal Investment Area where he worked on private equity investments, and at Deutsche Bank in both the Leveraged Finance and Technology investment banking groups. Mr. Javeri received a B.S. from Cornell University in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and an M.S. from Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering. We believe that Mr. Javeri’s extensive experience in senior finance, in publicly listed and private companies makes him well qualified to serve on our Board.

Christina Favilla, 57 [Appointed 12/27/24]
Independent Director

Ms. Favilla is an independent board member for Priority Technology Holdings, Opportunity Financial and Citizens State Bank of Ouray Colorado, where she is a member of Audit and Compensation Committees and Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee. As an advisor to accomplished Fintech companies, in public and private markets, focused on the financial services and payments industry, Ms. Favilla joined Ocrolus, in September 2020, one of the fastest growing Fintech companies in the U.S., blending financial documentation and machine learning. Ms. Favilla from July 2017 to September 2019 was the chief operating officer (“COO”) of Sterling National Bank and from February 2012 to June 2017, the COO of GE Capital North America, a financial segment of General Electric Company, representing $100 billion in served assets across Canada, Mexico and the United States. Ms. Favilla combined her people leadership and process disciplines and regulatory background to safely process over 3 million financial transactions each year. Ms. Favilla led a diverse team of 2,500 people across 33 locations and interacted with over 20,000 vendors. Ms. Favilla was a key member of the divestiture team at GE, leading the separation activities of the largest corporate reorganization in US market history. Prior to joining GE Capital, Ms. Favilla served as President of Bank of New Castle and President of Discover Bank, the banking arm of Discover Financial Services, offering online banking, credit card and home loan services, from 2006 through 2012. As President of Discover Bank, Ms. Favilla deployed the funding strategy to successfully launch the initial public offering of Discover Financial Services from Morgan Stanley. Ms. Favilla is a former board member of the American Bankers Association Government Relations Committee and Banking Council in Washington DC. Ms. Favilla’s community and not for profit engagements include chair of the Delaware Financial Literacy Institute, Delaware Chamber of Congress, Delaware Bankers Association and Danbury Chamber of Congress. Ms. Favilla received her Bachelor’s degree in International Studies from Marymount College and received a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Fordham University. We believe Ms. Favilla is qualified to serve on our board based on her academic and practical experience in the areas of finance, compensation, and corporate governance. We believe Ms. Favilla is qualified to serve on our board based on the breadth and depth of her business experience.

Shrijay Vijayan, 54 [Resigned]
Independent Director

Dr. Vijayan has 16 years of experience in biomedical technology commercialization during which time he has been involved in the assessment as well as development of a large variety of technologies, including therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices in areas ranging from rare diseases to neurodegeneration, cancer, autoimmunity, and inflammation. Dr. Vijayan has worked at both public/private institutions as well as at eminent hospitals and Universities. Since 2019, Dr. Vijayan has served as Director of Innovation and Technology Commercialization at the Hospital for Special Surgery, the number one ranked orthopedics hospital in the United States, where he has been closely involved with the assessment and commercialization of biologics and pharmaceuticals for autoimmune indications. From 2012 to 2014, he served as Associate Director, Innovation and Technology Transfer and later between 2014 and 2018, also as Head of Innovation and Technology Transfer at Rush University Medical Center (Rush), a nationally ranked academic medical center. Dr. Vijayan was closely involved in the assessment of commercialization potential of clinical assets that originated from Rush including several phase 2 assets in immuno-oncology and a women’s contraceptive that completed Phase 3 clinical trials and was eventually approved by the FDA. In addition to the various clinical assets, Dr. Vijayan was also closely involved in the assessment of commercialization potential and licensing of technologies including therapeutics for rare diseases and neurodegenerative diseases, diagnostics for cancer and kidney diseases as well as medical devices for neurovascular diseases. From 2007 to 2012, Dr. Vijayan was Co-Founder and Director of Business Development and Scientific Affairs at Optimal Vision Corporation, a seed stage medical device company developing laser technology for treatment of Presbyopia, an aging condition where the eyes lose their ability to focus on close objects. From 2010 to 2012, Dr. Vijayan served as Director of Biomedical Licensing and Assistant Director of Technology Commercialization at Rutgers University, where he promoted innovative biomedical technologies with the goal of monetizing them through licensing transactions. While at Rutgers, Dr. Vijayan was responsible for assessment and commercialization of a large portfolio of biomedical and pharmaceutical technologies ranging from novel therapeutics for infectious diseases and cancer to biomedical engineering and novel pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. Dr. Vijayan began his career in Technology commercialization as Associate Technology Manager at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in 2005, and from 2006 to 2010, he served as Technology Manager at UIC where he was involved in the assessment and commercialization of various therapeutics including those for sleep apnea, depression, and addiction. Dr. Vijayan earned a PhD in Biology from the City University of New York and an MBA from the UIC. Subsequent to earning his doctoral degree, Dr. Vijayan completed post-doctoral training, conducting research in neurodegeneration, cancer, and autoimmunity at The University of Chicago.

Enrique Klix, 56 [Appointed on 6/20/24]
Independent Director

He has served as the Chief Executive Officer and one of the directors of Integral Acquisition Corporation 1 (Nasdsaq: INTE), a special purpose acquisition company, since its inception in February 2021. Integral Acquisition Corporation 1 is a Nasdaq-listed entity in the process of a $300 million merger with Flybondi, a prominent low-cost airline operating in Latin America. Mr. Klix has significant international experience after being based in Australia, Europe, and Latin America for more than 30 years. Mr. Klix has a track record of successfully leading and advising corporations and governments on turnarounds, mergers and acquisitions, capital market transactions, operational and financial restructuring, and greenfield start-ups with an aggregate value in excess of $30 billion. Between January 2019 and July 2020, Mr. Klix served as Orora Cartons Australia’s General Manager (ASX: ORA). Under his leadership, the business went through a successful operational, commercial, and financial turnaround before being sold to Nippon Paper. Between 2014 and 2016, Mr. Klix served as Senior Vice President at McKinsey & Co.’s recovery and transformation division in Australia and New Zealand. Mr. Klix also served as Chief Financial Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer of McColl’s Transport between 2009 and 2014. Under his tenure, McColl’s Transport was recognized as the “Turnaround of the Year” in 2012 by the Turnaround Management Association (TMA), before being sold to a private equity consortium led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Mr. Klix was an investor in TrademarkVision, an Australian company that utilized image recognition and artificial intelligence technology for trademark searches and protection. In 2018 TrademarkVision was acquired by Clarivate Analytics (NYSE: CLVT), and Mr. Klix was instrumental in supporting the company through the acquisition. He is an active seed and pre-initial public offering investor in Australia and other geographies, including minority equity stakes in Groundfloor (Last K Ventures Pty. Ltd.) and Miso Robotics. Prior to moving to Australia, Mr. Klix worked for ten years as an investment banker for Salomon Smith Barney (now Citigroup (NYSE: C)) and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in London focused on servicing telecommunications companies across Europe on mergers and acquisitions, and debt and equity capital markets transactions. Mr. Klix also played lead roles in the initial and secondary public offerings of many energy, telecommunications and beverage companies such as Enel S.p.A. (BIT: ENEL), Energias de Portugal, S.A. (ELI: EDP), and Compañía Cervecerías Unidas, S.A. (NYSE: CCU). Mr. Klix is also a director of Klix II Pty. Ltd. Mr. Klix holds a degree in Economics from the Universidad Católica Argentina and an MBA from the University of Cambridge in England.

Donghyun Han, 54 [Resigned on 12/27/2024]
Independent Director

Mr. Han brings over 20 years of experience as a technology investor and entrepreneur, primarily in Korea. Mr. Han has since 2016 been the Director and a Shareholder of ST Invictus Partners, a start-up advisory and investment company in Hong Kong. Since 2020, Mr. Han has been a Board Member and the Chair of the Audit Committee of Solid Inc., a KOSDAQ-listed Korean telecom equipment company with a market cap of approximately KRW375 billion (US$335 million). Since 2018, Mr. Han has served as Independent Non-Executive Director and Deputy Chair of the Audit Committee for KEB Hana Global Finance, a Hong Kong subsidiary bank of Hana Financial Group. From 2008 to 2011, he was a Senior Vice President in the Strategic Investment Department at KT Corporation, one of South Korea’s largest telecommunications companies. From 2001 to 2007, Mr. Han was Partner and Head of Korea Office at SAIF, a leading Asian private equity firm that was, until its spin off in 2006, a subsidiary of Softbank Group, the Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company. From 2000 to 2001, Mr. Han was a Vice President and General Partner at Softbank Korea & Softbank Ventures Korea, the Korean arm of Softbank Group. Mr. Han obtained an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA in Business Administration from Seoul National University.

Hyunchan Cho, 53 [Resigned]
Independent Director

Mr. Cho brings over 20 years of experience in his successful career in investing. Since 2019, Mr. Cho has served as a partner and the Head of Infrastructure Investment for IMM Investment, a leading Korean alternative asset investment firm. He has also since 2019 served as the CEO of ICA Asset Management, the overseas affiliate of IMM Investment. From 1999 to 2019, Mr. Cho held various positions at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group including Director for Asia-Pacific Infrastructure and Natural Resources, and Senior Country Manager for China, Korea and Mongolia. Mr. Cho obtained a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Tokyo, a master’s degree in Civil Engineering from Stanford University, and a BS in Civil Engineering from Yonsei University in South Korea.