Awards

2020 Awards

What is TADS Awards

The tokenized assets industry is a game-changer. The World Economic Forum forecasts that by 2027, 10% of the world’s GDP will be tokenized — with an estimated market capitalization of US$24 trillion.

The Tokenized Assets & Digital Securities Awards (“TADS Awards”) is the world’s first annual international awards for Tokenized Assets & Digital Securities sector. It celebrates this industry by recognizing and honoring significant contributions and distinguished achievements worldwide. Hosted annually, the TADS Awards brings together individuals and businesses to share the energy that tokenization brings to the financial sector.

TADS Awards also aims to nurture the growth of these specific industries by jointly establishing “best practices” and setting “measuring standards” for high-quality tokenized assets and digitized securities, together with other industry leaders on the global market.

Award Categories

The TADS Awards presents ten (10) awards in total for the two Award Categories (that is, five awards for each category):

Best of Class TADS
(for asset issuers)

Equity-Backed Token

Asset-Backed Token

Tokenized Debt Token

Income-Based Token

ESG / SDG Token

Eco-System Excellence
(for service providers)

KYC / Compliance

Token Issuance

Digital Custodian

Security Token Exchange

Digital Asset Management

Steering Committee

By alphabetical order

Chris Carlin

Head of Alliances, Redistribution Solutions and Data Products, Asia
Morningstar

Chris Carlin is Head of Alliances, Redistribution Solutions, and Data Products, Asia for Morningstar, overseeing the business in North Asia, Japan, and ASEAN markets. Carlin spent 16 years at Thomson Reuters where he held many roles, and most recently served as Director of Investment & Advisory products for Asia Pacific. In his career he has worked in the United States, Australia, and Hong Kong. In addition, Carlin was a key member of Irish Funds, an industry body, which promotes Ireland as a domicile for funds and asset servicing.

Carlin holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Finance from Arizona State University, and earned his MBA from the Manchester Business School.

Nitin Gaur

Director, IBM Financial Sciences and Digital Assets
IBM

Nitin Gaur, Director of IBM WW Digital Asset Labs is renowned for his ability to analyse opportunities, anticipate trends, and create technologies that align with operational needs, catapult profitability, and dramatically improve the end-customer experience.

Since taking this role in 2015, Nitin has designed “blockchain for enterprise” solutions for large customers in regulated industries by working with various entities such as IBM research, large financial services industry clients, regulators and startup community addressing the fragmented blockchain landscape with existing application and transaction infrastructure.

Peter Koo

APAC Leader, IT & Specialized Assurance
Deloitte

Peter Koo, APAC Leader of IT & Specialized Assurance Services of Deloitte. He is also leading the firm’s FinTech Integrated Management Office (IMO) in southern region; the FinTech IMO liaises various activities including fundraising, TechFin, Blockchain System Implementation, Digital Transformation, e-Commerce/ FinTech related Tax advisory, FinTech/ Cyber Assurance, Fintech Risk and Regulatory Advisory, pre-IPO advisory, and IPO statutory audits.

Stephen Law

Managing Director
ANS Capital

Stephen Law is currently the Managing Director of ANS Capital Limited, with a focus on investment and corporate finance. He was previously the CFO of MTR Corporation Ltd (HK: 0066) responsible for finance, investment control, treasury, investor relations, information technology and materials & stores.

Prior to MTR, Stephen was a managing director of TPG, one of the world’s largest private equity firms. He was responsible for private equity investments in Asia. He was a founding member of the TPG Growth Asia team, leading key deals across different industries including consumer /retail, energy, healthcare. He also executed many successful IPOs in HK, US and Vietnam, and led the exits from his investment portfolio.

Prior to joining TPG in July 2006, Stephen Law was a director of Morningside, where he was responsible for a portfolio of venture capital investments. Under his management and directorships, these investee companies became leaders in their respective industries in the region. Stephen served as a director of the top three online game operator in China. He was the Chief Financial Officer of the second biggest outdoor advertising operator in China and he led its later sale to JC Decaux. Stephen was a founding director of an advertising agency which was subsequently merged with WPP Group. Stephen also founded and consolidated the Communication Central Group, the largest independent interactive marketing agency in China, which was sold to Publicis.

Prior to Morningside, Stephen focused on corporate finance and development for the Wheelock and Wharf Groups. He developed brewery business in China together with Foster’s. He initiated the launch of broadband business resulting in a multi-revenue model, and led the dual listing of i-Cable Communications Limited in Hong Kong and the United States. Prior to working for Wheelock, Stephen served as regional financial controller for multinationals.

Stephen started his career with Arthur Andersen in the United Kingdom. Stephen is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and a Certified Public Accountant in Hong Kong. He is currently a board member of the Hong Kong Business Accountants Association and was a Council member of Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He was an Adjunct Professor of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has also been appointed by the Ministry of Finance in China as an expert consultant to provide advice on finance and management accounting. He is a board member of SOW Asia, a charitable foundation which supports social enterprises through financial investments and accelerator program.

Stephen is an independent director of China Everbright Limited (HK: 165), China Galaxy Securities Co., Ltd. (HK: 6881), Bank of Guizhou Co., Ltd. (HK: 6199), and Somerley Capital Holdings Limited (HK: 8439). He was previously a non executive director of China NT Pharma Group Company Limited (HK : 1011) which is a comprehensive pharmaceutical group, engaging in investment, R&D, production, marketing and promotion of medicines and new medicinal technologies. He was also an independent director of US listed Stealth Biotherapeutics Corp (Nasdaq : MITO), which is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focusing on the discovery, development and commercialisation of novel therapies for diseases involving mitochondrial dysfunction. He is also a council member of the Hong Kong Independent Non-Executive Director Association.

Stephen holds a bachelor degree in science from the University of Birmingham, the United Kingdom and also received a master degree in business administration from the University of Hull, the United Kingdom.

Juwan Lee

Founder & CEO
Nexchange

Juwan Lee is Lead Founder and CEO of NexChange. NexChange is the professional social network for the financial services industry. It allows users to engage with industry specific content, and connect and chat with peers.

He has nearly 30 years of financial service experience managing portfolios on behalf of hedge funds, proprietary trading and asset managers. Formerly, the Chief Investment Officer for the international division of Shanghai’s largest asset management firm. He spent numerous years at JP Morgan in a variety of roles from principal investments to heading equity within the asset management division. Early pioneer in managing technology portfolios on behalf of hedge funds like SAC Capital and asset managers like Rothschilds and Montgomery. He holds an Engineering degree from the University of California / Berkeley.

Samson Lee

Founder & CEO
Coinstreet Partners

Mr. Samson Lee (or Sam), is a prominent entrepreneur and FinTech executive. He is also a board advisor, independent/non-executive director, public speaker, lecturer, corporate trainer and private investor. He has been a keynote speaker and expert panelist at over 50 international conferences, regional meetings and corporate events. His vision is to bring wealth inclusion and improve economic inequality in the world by diminishing the boundaries among nations and connecting isolated economies through financial technology and innovation.

Currently, Mr. Lee is the Founder & CEO of Coinstreet Partners, Honorary Guest Lecturer & Fintech and Blockchain Committee of Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (EDC), Independent Director of DSS (NYSE:DSS), Vice President of Blockchain Applications & Investment Alliance, Founding Chairman of Belt & Road TechFin Association, Chief Crypto-Economic Advisor of Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange as well as Co-Founder of The STO Lab, BMI-Coinstreet Digital (BC Digital), STO Global-X, Ethereum South China Community, and the Asia Pacific Digital Economy Institute.

Mr. Lee graduated with an MBA and a Master of Science degrees from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto.

Martin Sabine

Chairman
Somerley Capital

Mr. Sabine is responsible for overseeing our business development, cultivating long-term client relationship, introducing new clients and projects, monitoring industry developments and liaising with team heads and members on specific transactions. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Oxford in July 1969. He was awarded a Thouron Scholarship to attend the Wharton Graduate School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania in that year. He received a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the Wharton Graduate School of Business and was elected to the Beta Gamma Sigma honour society in April 1971.

After graduation, Mr. Sabine worked in the financial field in London before coming to Hong Kong in 1977. After working in the corporate finance department of Wardley Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited until 1983, latterly as a director, he set up Somerley International Limited in 1983. Since that time, Somerley International Limited and now Somerley Capital Limited have developed into one of the most active firms in the corporate finance advisory field in Hong Kong. Mr. Sabine is chairman of the Board of Directors of Somerley Capital Holdings Limited and Somerley Capital Limited and is their ultimate controlling shareholder.

Mr. Sabine has written a book on corporate finance (which is called Corporate Finance: Flotations, Equity Issues and Acquisitions), which has been translated into Chinese, Italian and Spanish. Mr. Sabine is a member of the Takeovers Panel and a fellow of the Hong Kong Securities and Investment Institute.

Suresh Sharma

Entrepreneur-In-Residence
Georgia Tech
(Georgia Institute of Technology)

A former GE-executive turned successful entrepreneur, Suresh has led a remarkably rich international journey of excellence to unleash full potential of people and organizations through innovation, technology, global operations, strategy, entrepreneurship and investments.

Today, he is passionate about “industrializing innovation” through creating best-of-breed startup ecosystems and do investments that drive 21st century digital transformation of traditional brick-n-mortar industries.

He serves and has served as a Managing Partner or Partner in a number of PE/VC firms. Further, as part-time ‘EIR @ Georgia Tech – Center for Distributed Energy’ he helps researchers commercialize their innovations.

Earlier, inspired by his own hands-on experiences of startups, and having mentored hundreds of new ventures, he authored “The 3rd American Dream” (2014) – an insightful book about innovation and entrepreneurship – that illustrates necessary building blocks for growth at individual, societal and national level. Suresh is an ‘intellectual business leader’ – said reviewers of this acclaimed work.

Starting his early professional life in India as Naval Aviation Officer, his career took him to industry, R&D and numerous businesses in UK, USA and several countries. Among others, he worked at British Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, MATRA, NASA, and General Electric. During the 90s, Suresh got international recognition for his pioneering role in globalization of GE while setting up their path-breaking facilities in over 15 countries including: Mexico, India, China, Austria, Hungary, Canada, and others. He later co-authored his first best-seller book: ‘Global Outsourcing’ (2005).

An internationally acknowledged speaker, Suresh serves or has served on Boards of public, private and non-profit organizations.

Specialities: Energy, e-Business, Aerospace, Aviation, Defense, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Sourcing, Manufacturing, and Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Peter Yan

Chief Executive Officer
Hong Kong Cyberport

Mr Peter Yan is a leading member of the information technology sector with over three decades of experience. He is now the Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited and leads the digital technology flagship to carry out its public missions to foster industry development, enterprise transformation and talent cultivation to realise Cyberport’s vision to create new impetus for Hong Kong’s new economy through digital technology.

Co-organizers

Asia Pacific Digital Economy Institute

NexChange

Coinstreet Partners

STO Lab

Global Ambassadors

South Korea

Sonny Kwon

Founder & CEO
TokenPost

Sonny Kwon is a serial digital entrepreneur focused on digital media and distributed ledger technology. He is the founder and CEO of PUBLISH Inc., a blockchain-based software solutions provider for newspaper businesses. He is also the founder and managing editor of two digital-native news websites including EconoTimes and TokenPost. In 2012, he started FxWirePro, a foreign exchange intelligence company, to provide intelligence newswire services to global financial institutions.

Hong Kong

Wayne Trench

Chief Executive Officer of OSL

Wayne oversees all of OSL’s activities, including trading and brokerage operations, product development and governance.

He has more than 15 years of experience in digital assets, investment banking, trading and finance.

Prior to joining OSL, Wayne held senior roles in major financial institutions, including as CEO of Octagon Strategy and Asia head of electronic trading coverage for Morgan Stanley.

Wayne is also an entrepreneur, co-founding Aspir, a diversified mineral processing technology and equipment supplier in Australia, which was acquired by the Weir Group in 2013.

He holds an MBA from the University of Southern Queensland, a Bachelor’s in Business Management from the University of Queensland and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Singapore

Branson Lee

CEO
ECXX.com

Branson Lee is an EXCO member of the Singapore FinTech Association since 2017 as well as the Token Economy Association.
He has over 10 years of experience in sales management in business information and technology companies dealing with government, statutory boards, financial Institutions, corporates in South East Asia. He has consulted for Gartner Inc, working with CIO/CEOs of some of the largest brands in Singapore. During his stint in LinkedIn, Branson engaged and advised Fortune 500 companies in Indonesia and Singapore on their social media strategy.
Having started off his career as an engineer with Sun Microsystems, he is currently the CEO of a digital asset exchange, ecxx.com. Branson is also a frequent speaker at blockchain workshops / seminars for financial institutions, government agencies and private events.

United Kingdom

Simon Barnby

CMO
Archax

Simon has over 20 years’ experience in the financial markets, having worked for trading technology and market data vendors in commercial and product-centric roles. Most recently, Simon has consulted with small and start-up companies in the FinTech space, in particular digital asset firms and those looking to ICO. Prior to this, he was Global Marketing Director at Fidessa Group for over 10 years, where he was responsible for all positioning, branding, product and corporate marketing activities globally.
Simon has experience in both digital and traditional marketing, brand development, customer acquisition, go-to-market plans, strategy, entrepreneurship, business development, project management and international commerce. He has also been actively involved in the design, launch and support of trading systems across various asset classes.
Simon has a BSc (Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Brunel University.

UAE

Kokila Alagh

Founder & CEO
KARM Legal Consultant

Kokila is a Corporate/Commercial and technology lawyer with over 17 years of experience in the middle east. She has worked with major corporations, government and semi government bodies, high net worth individuals and start-ups over the years. In addition to this, she has Masters in Law, in Digital Economy from the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, certification of Oxford Blockchain Strategy Programme from Oxford University and Fintech Programme from Harvard Business School has helped her develop an expertise in the area of newer technologies.

Germany

Al Ewers

Co-founder
Potrero Capital

USA

Xiaochen Zhang

Founder & CEO
Fintech4Good

Xiaochen Zhang, President of FinTech4Good, leads to introduce impactful fintech and blockchain solutions to frontier markets through incubation, acceleration and investment.

He is the Chairman of the Global Digital Economy Leadership Council, and serves on the Crowdfunding Professional Association Board of Directors, UN ESCAP Digital Economy Task Force and as a senior advisor of the China Social Entrepreneurs Foundation and Inter-America Development Bank. He is also the founder of Blockchain Frontier Group and host of the FinTech in China show and Blockchain Million Show.

He brings more than 17 years of thought leadership and global experience to build impactful solutions and scale up innovative ideas in North America, Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia. Prior, Xiaochen also advised government agencies and multinational organizations, World Bank, and United Nations.

Switzerland

Jerome Schonbachler

Founder
The MFO

Mr.Jérôme A. Schonbachler is Founder of TheMFO, an independent regulated fiduciary & family office services company with offices in Zurich, Geneva, Malta and Dubai.

He is also the founder and external director at TAAS Capital Fund, the first Luxembourg open-end investment fund with a primary focus on blockchain.

Prior, Mr. Schonbachler was heads the alternative investment activities for EFG Bank, part of global private banking group EFG International. Prior to EFG Bank, he was the global product manager for both the consumer bank and private bank, creating the third-party asset management offering in EMEA, Asia and Japan. He spent 16 months as an actuary for Sorema UK in the Lloyd’s of London reinsurance market, developing forecast reinsurance models. Before that, he worked at Paribas Capital Markets for business developments, and in capital markets division of Credit Lyonnais as a swaps trader. Mr. Schonbachler earned a degree in financial engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris.

India

Neha Soni

Founder & CEO
Corum8

Neha Soni is an Indian entrepreneur, ex- IBMer and technology evangelist by heart. She is the chief executive officer of Corum8, a global blockchain, AI development and Growth marketing firm she founded in 2018. She was featured in Fox News, ABC, NBC, the times, digital journal and other news channels for developing next-generation marketing tools using AI and extraordinary revolution which she bought in the marketing industry. She is also covered in TED and Forbes for Data – AI-based growth marketing, sales, and enterprise blockchain development.

Canada

Chris Carl

President & CEO
DigiMax
Global Solutions

Mr. Christopher D. Carl, also known as Chris, is the President & CEO at DigiMaxGlobal Solutions Inc. Mr. Carl founded Bio-Extraction Ltd. in 2003 and has been its President and Chief Executive Officer since January 2003 respectively. Mr. Carl served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of BioExx Specialty Proteins Ltd. (alternate name: Bio-Extraction Inc) from March 2006 to August 2011. Mr. Carl has over 25 years experience in project finance, plant construction and mill management focused on commercializing new technologies and transforming start-up ventures into successful publicly listed companies. This includes and 11 years (from 1991 to 2002) developing and operating The CanFibre Group Ltd. He served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of The CanFibre Group Ltd. Prior to this, he also spent several years (1986 to 1991) with a Canadian subsidiary of Tenneco Inc. where he was responsible for finance and administration matters both domestically and internationally and was directly involved in Greenfield, which was the construction of a new processing plant on a previously vacant piece of land and plant operations. Mr. Carl has been an Executive Director of Bio-Extraction Inc. since March 16, 2006. He has been a Director of Key Venture Capital Inc., since September 15, 2010, Kafus Industries Ltd since October 1997 and of Bio-Extraction Ltd. since January 2003. He also serves as Director of Signet Industries Ltd. He served as a Director of Luxell Technologies Inc. from June 4, 2007 to August 21, 2008. Mr. Carl also served as Director of Kingsmill Capital Ventures Inc. from October 2005 to August 21, 2008. Mr. Carl holds an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree from Queen’s University

Japan

Junya Yamamoto

CEO
Binarystar

Yama is a blockchain business specialists invented & contributed to 10+ the world first Blockchain tech and business achievement since 2015.

I and my team becomes your project liaising partner keep producing business and lead next growth of your business.

IBLT provides business development and project management backed by our unique experience coordinated more than 300 members come from more than 10 countries for blockchain project in Asia.

China

Alyssa Tsai

Founder & CEO
PANONY

Alyssa Tsai is the Founder and CEO of PANONY and PANews, a consulting, research and news platform that assists enterprises in adopting emerging technologies through offering industry insights and communication strategies to business leaders. Alyssa Tsai is also an honoree of Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in “Media, Marketing & Advertising”.