Douglas Abrams

Managing Director

Douglas Abrams is the founder and CEO of Expara and Expara IDM Ventures, Singapore’s leading incubator fund. He has launched two seed stage (Expara IDM Ventures I and II) and one early-stage venture fund (Extream Ventures) in Singapore since 2007. Douglas is a Managing Director of Expara Ventures Thailand and Expara Malaysia. He was a founding partner of Parallax Capital Management, a funds management company, focused on real estate private equity investment and early-stage venture capital. Prior to coming to Singapore in 2000, Mr. Abrams managed information technology at JPMorgan for 14 years. From 1997 to 1999, he was Global Markets Head of Internet Marketing, and from 1991 to 1997, he was VP and Manager of Investment Banking Technology.

He is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Business School, where he has lectured on New Venture Creation for undergraduates and Technopreneurship for graduate students since 2001. He has been a Visiting Professor in Venture Capital for the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok since 2007. Mr. Abrams is Chairman of the Business Angel Network of South East Asia (BANSEA), was previously Deputy Co-Chairman and has been a Director since 2002. He served on the board of the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) from 2009-2010.

Mr. Abrams graduated from the Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Communications and received an MBA from The Wharton School.

Lanie Del Rosario

Director

Lanie is currently the Director of Investor Relations at Expara. She is an accomplished and innovative senior leader with 9+ years of experience in Venture Capital and acceleration, leading global investor relations, fundraising and business development and acting as an advisor to the investment team, regarding investor interest.

Lanie has extensive experience in managing investment teams, intricate relationships with key investors, financial marketing, client relationship development, project management, business operations and administration. She is specialized in sourcing new investment opportunities, participating in Investment Committee meetings, supporting portfolio companies, providing company updates to the investment community, mentoring start-ups and cultivating strategic partnerships. She is dedicated in driving business growth through the organization of accelerator programs, incubator programs, innovation challenges, workshops, hackathons and advisory services

Lanie is a double degree holder - Bachelor in Business Administration Major in Management from St. Paul University and Bachelor of Science in Nursing (Cum Laude). She pursued her Masters in Business Management from the University of the Philippines. She’s a Registered Nurse both in the Philippines and in Michigan, USA. Prior to joining Expara, Lanie was an entrepreneur and served as an Operations Director of a US Telehealth Company. She also worked as a nurse, banker and manager of their family owned Aquafarm business. You may reach her at lanie@expara.com.

Tran Duy Khiem

Senior Associate

Khiem joined Expara in early 2017. He holds both Bachelor of Corporate Finance and Master of Business Administration (Finance focused) degree with 100% scholarship from Vietnam National University where he contributed research papers about Vietnam venture capital market to Southeast Asia (Singapore Management University) and local journals (Vietnam Trade and Industry Review). Before joining Expara, Khiem had experience in Vietnam ecosystem since 2014 as Investment Representative from ESP Ventures (formerly Alpha Vision Ventures) and Senior Investment/Innovation Officer at Asia Commercial Bank. Khiem's favorite quote is: "Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised". You may drop him an email at khiem@expara.com.

Krista Supavatanakul

Principal

Krista is currently a Prinicipal at Expara Thailand. Prior to joining Expara, she worked at HSBC, overlooking client portfolios and conducting investment analysis. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Sydney, majoring in Economics and Marketing and her MBA from Sasin School of Management, majoring in Finance and Entrepreneurship. Krista has strong interests in environmental sustainability as well as social development, and plans to create impact through innovation in the upcoming years.

Paulina Bialek

Business Development Director

Paulina is a Business Development Director at Expara. Currently, she manages the Expara VirTech Global Accelerator - a three-month online acceleration program dedicated to startups developing tech-solutions for a post-pandemic world. Prior to joining VC, she was working in the Ministry of Finance of Poland as an Assistant to Alternate Director of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Moreover, she founded and currently serves as a President to an international foundation called Lotus League on establishing cooperation between entrepreneurs from Europe and Asia to provide the exchange of knowledge and experience between two continents.

Peach Sutarat

Analyst

Penluck (Peach) Sutarat is currently an analyst at Expara, having joined in January 2020. Prior to joining Expara, she previously interned at Probit Investment Advisory and Maybank Kim Eng. She earned her Bachelor's degree from the College of Wooster, majoring in Economics and minoring in Geology. Peach has a keen interest in environmental management and sustainability and was a part of the operating team for the SPACE-F Foodtech Accelerator and Incubator Batch 1 Program.

Nan Sethjinda

Project Management

Nan Sethjinda contributes to the academic development for Master of Science in Investment Analysis and Management (MsIAM), Graduate School of Business, Assumption University. In this role, she collaborates with Thailand Securities Institute, the Stock Exchange of Thailand, investment professionals, investors and partners to bring practical insights to the program and to the Thai academic community. She teaches Financial Management for the MBA program and facilitates the Cases in Ethics and Professional Conducts.

Prior to her academic role, Nan had over 15 years of experience in the wholesales banking, covering business development to operations & project management, with HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) pcl.

Nan holds a Ph.D degree in Organization Development from Assumption University of Thailand, a Master degree in Business Administration in Finance from University of Exeter, United Kingdom and a Bachelor degree in Business English from Assumption University Thailand.

Ponarul AP

Partner

Ponarul is a Partner at CVCinsight, the CVC advisory business of Expara with over 14+ years of global experience in early stage venture investing in technology and business development in pharma/biotech industry. He led business development at GVK BIO, Asia’s leading contract research organization, establishing 80+ research collaborations and generating over $100+Mn in revenues. He was earlier associated with Unitus Seed Fund, a leading impact venture fund focused on seed stage investments in early stage technology startups innovating for the masses.

Ponarul promotes the convergence of corporate venture capital and desired social or environmental outcomes to achieve inclusive growth through corporate impact venturing. He is an entrepreneur building and growing deep tech ventures in the knowledge economy. He founded ExQuotient, CreaGenie, TacitKey, HuCa Partners and Expertise Ventures.

Ponarul has a MPhil in Bio-Science Enterprise specializing in the commercialization of biotechnology from the University of Cambridge and a SM in Molecular Engineering from the Singapore MIT Alliance (National University of Singapore).