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Dr. Yanan Wu
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Surfin Meta Digital Technology Pte. Ltd.
Dr Wu is CEO and Founder of Surfin Meta Digital Technology (SMDT) Pte Ltd, a Singapore-headquartered financial technology solutions provider for the underserved.
He began his career as a research scientist in the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center as well as the Los Alamos National Lab, where he published several academic papers on first-rate physical journals.
Dr Wu then kickstarted his financial career by joining a hedge fund for quant trading, before moving on to TD Bank for 13 years as a senior portfolio manager, managing $30 billion in AUM for global asset allocation and quant strategies. Following that, he moved to Asia to join Citic-Prudential as Head of Quantitative Investment Director, and was responsible for managing $4 billion in AUM with a focus on Asian equities for 5 years.
SMDT was founded in 2017, inspired by Dr Wu’s passion for bringing financial inclusion to the unbanked and underbanked. He hopes to utilize his financial training combined with his love for technology to create a unique cross-border platform that will aim to provide financial services such as consumer lending and credit cards, payments and remittances, wealth management as well as B2B solutions to those who are unable to access traditional financial institutions.
Speaking At
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5:25–5:45pmTue 17 NovSummit StageSummit Stage, Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Level 5Invite-Only
Others
Beyond Investing, The Courage to Create Wealth
About this session
What makes someone walk away from a successful career managing billions of dollars to build something entirely their own?
From nuclear physics to institutional investing and entrepreneurship, Dr Yanan Wu’s journey is marked by bold decisions, unexpected turns and the determination to start again. His experience building a business across emerging markets, including South Asia and Southeast Asia, offers lessons in navigating unfamiliar territory, recognising opportunities and turning conviction into commercial success.
In this candid conversation, he reflects on the risks, setbacks and defining decisions that shaped his journey, and what it takes to move beyond preserving wealth to creating lasting value.
