Meet select team members

• Mario Aquino

  Mario has 20 years of investment, business building and entrepreneurial experience in big data and advanced analytics. He brings a wealth of experience in digital innovation, fintech, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. As FutureLabs Ventures' Managing Partner, he leverages his expertise to build scalable, next generation digital ventures and tech investments.

  Prior to FutureLabs, Mario was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he founded McKinsey Solutions and McKinsey New Ventures in Asia-Pacific. While leading McKinsey New Ventures, Mario invested, built and scaled a portfolio of 20+ fintech, consumertech, healthtech, and energytech start-ups that have become global players in their fields. During his tenure, he also spearheaded the growth of McKinsey New Ventures' team to over 500 professionals in Asia-Pacific.

  Mario was also the Managing Director and board member of risk analytics firm Moody's Analytics in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; where he was instrumental in making a number of transformative acquisitions and internal investments within financial technology and advanced analytics. During his nine years stint at Moody's Analytics, the firm grew into a US$1 billion revenue company.

  Previously, Mario was a financial analyst at Lehman Brothers in London, focusing on high-tech and high-growth sectors.

  Mario obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration in International Business and Finance at Milan's Bocconi University summa cum laude, before obtaining his MBA at University of Chicago Booth, Graduate School of Business in 1999.

  

  Mario Founding Partner & CEO

• Philippe Mauchard

  A seasoned intra/entrepreneur and start-up investor with over 25 years of innovation & corporate venture building experience, spanning from consulting, to building ventures, and investing in tech start-ups especially in the B2B tech space.

  Philippe was a McKinsey Partner and co-founder of McKinsey Solutions, a new part of McKinsey that focused on building and launching a portfolio of 30+ digital ventures, and that he grew to more than 1,500 dedicated professionals globally

  Philippe is a Founding Partner of FutureLabs Ventures which he launched in Europe with fellow McKinsey Venture Partners in 2018.

  He is also a Marketing Professor at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, and a founder of Teach for Belgium. He holds a Master in Commercial Engineering from Solvay, and an MBA from INSEAD. Philippe is currently a board member of various start/scale ups.

  

  Philippe Founding Partner

• Simas Ceckauskas

  Equipped with years of experience in management consulting and the start-up world, Simas has served as an advisor to large enterprises and has established a track record of scaling start-ups. As a Venture Associate at FutureLabs Ventures, Simas is dedicated to helping start-ups transform into established companies.

  Prior to FutureLabs, Simas served as an advisor to major corporates, scaled start-ups and founded and sold his own company. He has experienced both the corporate and the start-up world and today finds himself most effective somewhere in the middle, at the juncture of where entrepreneurial talent and vigour meet the structure and scale of an established corporate powerhouse. Simas has spent the better part of his career trying to arrange these “shotgun weddings” to build new companies and subsequently acting as the marriage counselor to see them blossom.

  With citizenship in the United States, European Union, and Australia, and having lived in seven countries, Simas views himself as a global citizen. He has a deep appreciation for the perspectives that different cultures bring and looks for the best ideas globally to build new ventures.

  Outside of his career, Simas is an avid student of philosophy and finds deep relaxation in the readings of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tzu and their teachings applicable to his daily work. He encourages corporates and entrepreneurs to see that “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”.

  Simas holds an MBA from INSEAD, a Master in Finance from ESADE and a Master in International Management from the CEMS Global Graduate School Alliance.

  

  Simas Venture Director

• Tamanna Dahiya

  A highly motivated innovation and change leader, Tamanna possesses over 15 years of experience in innovation, strategy and talent management with corporates and start-ups. As the Venture Director at FutureLabs Ventures, she provides hands-on experience and coaching in building corporate ventures and startups, effectively bridging the best of both worlds together.

  Before FutureLabs Ventures, Tamanna was the Director of DHL’s Asia Pacific Innovation Center. There, she was instrumental in setting up the Innovation Center platform and defining its customer-centric innovation approach. She led customer engagements and trends research projects on topics of relevance to future of logistics including robotics, augmented reality, omni-channel and blockchain with close collaboration of business units and start-up partners. Over a period of three years, this center engaged with more than two hundred customers from across industries on innovation relevant to their business operations.

  Growing up representing her state in five different sports, Tamanna instinctively relates to the game-changing potential of high performing teams. She started her career with a talent management start-up in India that got acquired by Manpower Inc. She then moved on to join a Fortune 500 company where she was involved in different areas ranging from internal consulting on operations and strategy to new product development. Among other things, she developed and launched a new global product focused on warehousing services that has since grown into one of the most profitable products for the business world-wide. She has lived and worked in the United States, Europe and Asia and is well-versed with the innovation ecosystems and work-cultures across these continents.

  Tamanna holds an MBA from Emory University, Atlanta and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Human Relations from the Management Development Institute in Gurgaon, India.

  

  Tamanna Venture Director

• Giuseppe Manai

  Giuseppe has over fifteen years of experience and is skilled in executing big data strategies in start-ups, governments and corporations. As a Venture Founder at FutureLabs Ventures, he is driven by a passion to create businesses underpinned by social values, which he does by seeking the confluence between science and products.

  He is also one of the co-founders of the ACM SIGKDD chapter in Singapore. A strong advocate in providing professional advice to tech teams who are driven to excel, Giuseppe focuses on building products that leverage techniques such as optimisation, time series analysis and forecasting, trajectory data mining, anomaly detection, network analytics, collaborative filtering, supervised and unsupervised learning, nonlinear dynamics, chaos theory and numerical simulations.

  Prior to joining FutureLabs, Giuseppe was the Data Science and Product Director at Dataspark, a spin-off of Singaporean telco firm Singtel that focuses on mobility intelligence and other telco products. He also worked at various data science roles at organisations such as SAS and the Irish Revenue Authority.

  Giuseppe holds a PhD in Physics from Trinity College Dublin. There, he specialised in experimental and numerical studies in nanotechnology and material science, working on low temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy.

  

  Giuseppe Venture Founder

• Ananda Motte Falisse

  Comes with an engineering background, Ananda has had an entrepreneurial journey holding CPO, CTO and CEO roles in semiconductors, fintech, physical commodity trading and logistics, edtech and influencer commerce.

  He holds an MBA from INSEAD

  

  ananda Venture Founder

• Usman Lodhi

  Business leader and entrepreneur with 15+ years experience in digital consumer, telecommunications, software and infrastructure sectors in Europe and Asia.

  More than 10 years leadership experience in establishing and growing new digital businesses (in corporate and start-up settings) across South-East Asia, leveraging technology, ground-breaking strategic partnerships and data-driven execution. Demonstrated success in delivering customer and shareholder value through product innovation, building high impact teams and unlocking new revenue streams.

  

  Usman Venture Partner

• Gautam Barua

  Experienced Strategist, Venture Builder, Investor.

  Gautam is a seasoned investment, strategy, and corporate venture building entrepreneur and adviser, committed to addressing the world's most pressing needs.

  Over his 20+ year long career, Gautam has amassed a track-record of building businesses, driving growth through organic & inorganic initiatives, and leading new business creation from planning to launch & go-to-market. A specific area of Gautam’s interest and focus has been identifying and pursuing new business opportunities in ESG and decarbonization, healthcare, and technology.

  His successes stem from a combination of cross-functional capabilities - Product Management, venture financing, and team building – that he developed in roles at several of the world's most pioneering organizations.

  His career profile include:

  • Leadership roles at Noble.ai and Zymergen, respectively a Silicon Valley Start-up pioneering the creation of science-based AI tools for research & innovation; and a Pre-IPO synthetic biology firm, which secured $800M+ in funding.

  • Co-Founder and Member of the Board, California BioEnergy.

  • Advisor to McKinsey Ventures, with a focus on establishing a strong network of VC and start-up relationships in Silicon Valley – as well as help grow the expanding group of McKinsey Ventures’ portfolio companies.

  • Principal at Medley Capital, a firm Gautam helped scale to $1.2 billion in senior lending to middle-market private companies. Focused on cleantech and sustainability investment opportunities.

  • Senior Manager & Product Lead at AOL and Zyng Networks

  • Management Consultant at McKinsey

  Gautam is a Harvard Business School grad (1997) with distinction.

  

  gautam Venture Partner

• Amrita Deol

  Amrita joined FutureLabs as a Venture Architect in 2020. Amrita is passionate about innovation and enabling positive change and she supports founders and early stage ventures in their efforts to create, validate and scale their ideas.

  Prior to joining FutureLabs, Amrita spent three years as an Associate, and subsequently Senior Associate, at EY Parthenon strategy consulting group in Singapore. During this time, Amrita executed projects focused on growth strategy, transformational strategy, digital strategy, and operational efficiency.

  Amrita graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Economics (with associated minor in Political Science) from Middlebury College, USA.

  In addition, Amrita has taken a personal interest and has been actively involved in fighting human trafficking through a variety of non-profit organisations.

  

  Amrita Venture Architect

• Selma Ayuanshari

  Selma comes with experience in both startups and the venture capital sector across South East Asia. She joined FLV in 2020 as a Venture Analyst and she focuses on creating and scaling multiple ventures. She worked and supported in multiple departments from HR, Business Development, Legal/Compliance and sourced and nurtured strategic platform-wide partnerships across synergistic industries.

  Before FutureLabs Ventures, Selma worked both in the startups and venture capital. She also like to volunteer her time in NGO’s and Impact focused projects. She focuses in fintech, healthtech which allowed her to develop an extensive network in the startup industries. Selma holds a Law Degree from the University of Indonesia majoring in Private Law. With extensive research on both legal tech and also public private partnership.

  

  Selma Partnership Lead

• Joanne Tham

  Joanne has over 15 years of experience in both corporate sector and startup, As an Office Manager in FutureLabs Ventures, she is responsible for overseeing the administration and operations initiatives, including streamline areas of Finance, Marketing and Human Resource.

  She has an avid interest in culture, mixed media art and loves music.

  Joanne graduated from Monash University with a Bachelor's degree in Business (Banking & Finance).

  

  Joanne Office Manager

• Alessandro Astore

  Alessandro has a deep interest in startup investing and joined FutureLabs in 2021 to develop new strategic initiatives and support the venture building activity.

  He was an investment analyst in Italian Angels for Growth, the main seed phase investor and biggest Business Angel Network in Italy, carrying out all the investment process: from scouting to investing.

  Alessandro graduated with a B.S. in Economics and Finance from Bocconi University in Milan and is currently attending a MSc in Finance at ESSEC Business School in Singapore.

  He looks to further understand and contribute to the SEA startup market by being active in several associations, gathering both entrepreneurs and investors to improve the startup ecosystem in Italy.

  

  Alessandro Venture Architect

• Kent Lin

  At FutureLabs, Kent heads multiple initiatives including venture building, country expansion & process optimization.

  At the start, he set up & streamline HR & finance processes. He also led the effort in setting up our Malaysia & Indonesia offices, built out our analyst team from scratch and scaled to 4 venture analysts & recruited 2 Venture Founders (CEOs).

  On a parallel track, he dove deep into corporate venture building, validating the market, building MVPs & up-round fundraising for our portfolio companies.

  In his past lives, Kent used to be a founder / CEO, an advisor to start-ups, and a McKinsey baby (a word coined for the Firm’s campus hires) focusing on strategy and digital innovation.

  Deeply connected to a network of 800+ entrepreneurs and investors in China and SEA, he aims to build a bridge between the two start-up ecosystems. He likes to buy people coffee in exchange for a great conversation - don't hesitate to ping him on LinkedIn today.

  

  Kent Chief Of Staff