Mark Thong is an experienced B2B2C business leader who kick-started & accelerated the Asia business for 8 start-ups. He was the first hire for 3 of these start-ups. Mark learnt early in his career about start-ups and growth hacking, to reap rewards through successful value-building. The first start-up that he worked in, exited for USD1.5b in 1999, and has exited with 4 of the other 7 start-ups successfully. In between the startup stints, Mark has also taken leadership roles in the business divisions of F500 companies, like Ericsson & Amdocs, delivering growth. His journey has now brought him to Aiven, to drive its business growth in the South-East Asia (SEA) region. He enjoys working with companies on their digital business transformation, through the adoption of open source software to harness the latest technologies & innovation, and leveraging fully managed world class cloud data infrastructure to support rapid business growth.