Doing More With Less

Start-up expert Dave McClure will kick off this July 21st panel discussion with a straight-talking keynote about where outsourcing fits into the tech industry.  Fresh off the plane from his tech tour of Asia, Dave will frame up the current experience of Valley entrepreneurs and moderate a panel of industry participants.  The panel features Elliott Ng of UpTake, Gary Swart of oDesk, and Stanley Kwong, formerly of IBM.  Continue your discussion through dinner with guest moderators at each table who have direct work experience with Asia and the Valley.  Discussion will focus on how companies large and small are managing their resources in today's economy - doing more with less.

Dave McClure currently runs a seed-stage investment program for Founders Fund called FF Angel, which makes investments in select startups. He also runs an incubator program which makes investments in Facebook-related startups. Generally, Dave advises and invests in geeks and entrepreneurs who creat great new consumer and small business internet startups. In particular, he focuses on helping startups improve their product development and marketing process by emphasizing the use of simple, actionable metrics to drive startup success. He has lived and worked in Silicon Valley for over 20 years.

Randy Lee is the General Manager of Symbio.  Previously, Randy worked at Sparktech Corporation, a leading consumer electronics and mobile video sideloading and streaming company, serving as the General Manager where he led all aspects of the business.  Prior to that, Randy was with Silicon Valley Bank where he assisted in the bank’s strategic planning efforts and underwrote some of SVB’s largest transactions in communication/electronics and life sciences.  He was also the Director of Strategic Alliances at iAsiaWorks, a publicly traded web hosting company that built large scale, next generation data centers throughout Asia, and ChinaVest, a Greater China focused venture capital firm where he focused on the telecommunications and information technology sectors.  Randy received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Santa Clara University and his MBA from the University of California, Davis, Graduate School of Management.

Gary Swart has 16 years in the software industry, and has held sales, operations and executive positions at startups and leading global enterprises. Currently Gary is the CEO of oDesk, a global marketplace that lets employers hire, manage, and pay world class technical talent at globally competitive rates. Prior to oDesk, Gary was COO at Intellibank, a provider of on-demand contact and document management solutions. Prior to Intellibank, Gary lead the SMB Division for IBM, Rational Software Products. IBM acquired Rational in 2003. He joined Rational in April 1997 via the acquisition of Pure Atria, where he was Director of Corporate Sales.  Gary has spent most of his career in operational roles and ensuring customer results through effective solution selling of products and implementation services. He has a track record of building loyal, high-performance teams.

Elliott Ng co-founded UpTake, Inc in 2007, a travel search and discovery site. It’s slowly being transitioned from its parent, Kaango, a travel review aggregator. He is Vice-President of Marketing at UpTake and is also the sponsor and contributing editor at CN Reviews.com, a new blog focused on the China blogosphere, China travel, entrepreneurship in China, and the urban lifestyle of the generations of Chinese born in the 70s and 80s.  Elliott has over 16 years of experience in marketing and venture-backed entrepreneurship. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and lives in California with his family. Elliott speaks conversational Cantonese.

Stan Kwong has over 20 years of international management and marketing experience with both start-up and established enterprises in US, China, India, and Central Europe. Prior to joining the University of San Francisco in 2009 as adjunct faculty, Stan was the Worldwide Program Director for IBM Developers Marketing where he had conceived and managed numerous projects including a worldwide marketing program for IBM with operations in North America, China, India, Germany, and Russia. Stan was also responsible for teaching International Marketing at worldwide IBM Executive Development Seminars. Before coming to IBM, Stan was an Assistant Dean and Assistant Professor at Princeton University.