Summary

I've always been known as a technology thought leader and visionary who can be both hands-on to build the product and step back to manage and grow a talented team of individuals that can deliver on the vision. I have over 24 years of management experience (since 1999) and 34 years of programming experience (since 1990). I am motivated by challenging environments and high aspirations where my natural instincts, years of experience, and insights can help execute and achieve the vision/goal.

Education Background

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) [1996 - 2000]

• Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

• Minor in Chemistry, Concentration in Chinese

Experience

Wonder (New York City, NY) - Chief Technology Officer - [March 2024 - Present]

Responsibilities

• Make great food more accessible

• Be the primary destination for mealtime and the world’s most admired food company.

Built Technologies (Nashville, TN - Remote from Kirkland, WA) - Chief Technology Officer - [Jan 2023 - March 2024]

Responsibilities

• Improving the way the world gets built!

Flexport, Inc. (San Francisco, CA) - Chief Technology Officer - [July 2019 - November 2022]

Leading Flexport’s Marker organization - Company Size: 1,800+

Responsibilities

• Making global trade easier for everyone!

Amazon, Inc. (Seattle, WA) - Director of Technology, Amazon Global Logistics and Amazon Shipping - [April 2016 - July 2019]

Leading global logistics and amazon shipping technologies. - Company Size: 340,000+

Responsibilities

• Provide product and technology vision for global logistics and amazon shipping.

• Build and manage product and technology teams to execute on the vision.

Rakuten, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) - Senior Executive Officer - [September 2011 - March 2016]

Part of the global development management team. - Company Size: 10,000+

Executive Responsibilities

• Senior Executive Officer of Rakuten- January 2014 - March 2016

• Technology Advisor in FinTech Fund - January 2015 - March 2016

• Head of Digital Content, Media and Marketing Product and Technology Initiatives - October 2015 - March 2016

Past Responsibilities

• Development Process Optimization Department Manager - April 2014 - January 2016

• Smart Device Technologies Department Manager - February 2012 - January 2016

• Vice Executive Director of Development - February 2011 - October 2015

• Global Infrastructure and Operations Department Manager- April 2014 - March 2015

• Group Core Services Department Manager (Membership, Points, Coupon, Email, Payment, Data Warehouse) - September 2013 - April 2014

• Cross Border Trading Business Manager - December 2011 - January 2014

• Rakuten Ichiba Department Manager (Ecommerce) - September 2011 - April 2014

Rakuten, Inc. (San Francisco, CA) - Executive Officer - [February 2010 - September 2011]

Accomplishments

• Executive Officer of Rakuten - February 2011 - January 2013

• CTO of LinkShare Labs - February 2010 - January 2012

• Technology Advisor to Board Of Directors - July 2010 - February 2011

Freecause, Inc. (Boston, MA) - Chief Technology Officer - [May 2008 - February 2010]

Joined a talented team of young entrepreneurs to help them build out the technology platform quickly and grow a great development team. This is a fast growth startup, thus there are too many things to discuss and/or list. FreeCause was acquired by Rakuten USA in August 2009. - Company Size: 30

Accomplishments

• Recruited and hired additional development staff.

• Designed and built the next generation platform framework for all Freecause web based products.

• Educated and trained developers on building and porting products onto the new platform.

• Oversaw numerous client implementations.

• Managed numerous enhancements, refactoring of product code.

Technology (Hands-On)

• Application - Visual Studio, Emacs, CVS, CodeIgniter, SQL Workbench, MySQL

• Programming Language - PHP, PERL, .NET, HTML/CSS, JS/jQuery/jQuery UI

Jenzabar, Inc. (Boston, MA) - Chief Technology Officer - [March 2000 - April 2008]

I spent 8 wonderful and rewarding years at Jenzabar after the acquisition of CampusCraze. Through these years, I gained critical insights and personal experiences which would be hard to match elsewhere in this short period of time. I had the pleasure and privilege to align and consolidate 5 different acquired companies' product lines and development teams to a single company's vision. - Company Size: 250

Accomplishments

• Chief Technology Officer / Vice President of Technology (2003 - 2008)

  • Was the company's technology visionary and provided leadership in directing and promoting Jenzabar's product vision, road map.

  • Responsible for the management of product managers and product development staff (~100 direct reports)

  • Budgetary responsibility of 9.8 million dollars

  • Provided strategic direction and identified critical success factors for continual growth in the higher education and related market space.

  • Performed analysis of internal operations, cut redundant roles and hardware/software, and streamlined the development cycle for both client-server technology and web technology.

  • Incorporated off-shore development resources to augment existing development initiatives.

  • Managed relationships with key strategic partners (Microsoft, IBM, Cognos, Oracle, SUN, etc.).

  • Evaluated and negotiated with vendors on third party products and services to be included with Jenzabar's line of products.

  • Led migration of applications on AS400, OpenVMS, UNIX systems to Java, Migration of existing windows applications to .NET

  • Initiated new product development efforts on the .NET portal framework as well as Java ERP System.

  • Managed expansion of Business Intelligence framework

• Director of New Application Development (2002 - 2003)

  • Reported directly to the CEO and president to provide a product strategy that aligned with the corporate vision.

  • Led the execution of the new product development and migration of existing product lines.

  • Simultaneously managed and directed multiple large scale product line development, mainly focused on emerging technologies and new product lines.

  • Successfully led the development of the next generation portal product (Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution).

  • Directly involved in recruiting and hiring the entire emerging technology group within product development.

• Manager of Portal Development (2000-2001)

  • Provided project management for all the design, development, and implementation processes for the core technology group.

  • Led the successful conversion of the website from ASP, VB/C++ COM, MTS on Oracle 8i to SQL2000. Major duties and accomplishments involved: leading technology projects, including external product-related initiatives and internal system implementation; performance reviews; code reviews; researching of new technologies; weekly team meetings.

  • Interfaced daily with IT and QA to coordinate and ensure that the proper development environment and processes were in place for efficient development.

  • Represented Jenzabar's technology group in partnership meetings to assess scope and implementation strategies.

  • Managed relationships and communications with consultancies and contracting firms to set the goals and expectations for each project (including negotiation on pricing).

Technology (Hands-On)

• Application - Visual Studio, VSS, CVS, ClearQuest, OnTime, MS Project, Eclipse, Apache, WebSphere, JBoss, Jasper, Cognos, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, DB2, MySQL, AS400

• Programming Language - Java, .NET, C#/LINQ, PHP, ASP, VB, HTML/CSS, JS

CampusCraze, Inc. (Cambridge, MA) - Chief Executive Officer, Founder - [August 1999 - July 2000]

CampusCraze was acquired by Jenzabar in July 2000. As with any founder of an internet startup, the experiences during this time were invaluable and will have a great impact for the rest of my life. The accomplishments were numerous as were the trial and errors; it is best sharing these experiences in person. - Company Size: 20

Accomplishments

• Led the acquisition of CampusCraze, Incorporated by Jenzabar, Inc.

• Provided the vision and founded a web-based portal technology company serving the 18-24 year old market

• Specified requirements of a web-based eCommerce portal, connecting the college student community to direct marketers in this vertical niche.

• Organized the management team to devise solutions and the strategy for the business plan, revenue model, and marketing plan.

• Managed and contributed to the programming development efforts.

Technology (Hands-On)

• Application - Visual Studio, Eclipse, Emacs, VSS, CVS

• Programming Language - ASP, Java, SQL Server, HTML

MIT Media Lab (Cambridge, MA) - Software Developer and Researcher [1996 - 1999]

I was lucky enough to have done research and extremely innovating projects in 2 great groups at MIT's Media Lab: Software Agents and New In the Future.

Accomplishments

• Designed and implemented back-end algorithms for an e-commerce website (Market Maker), using JAVA Servlets.

• Developed a 3-D Chess package that integrated with on-line newspapers, with client side written in JAVA and chess server written in PERL.

• Developed and implemented new encryption techniques to encode information in images using C++ and JAVA. (Patchwork, texture mapping, affined invariance).

• Maintained the Media Lab's JAVA DT library, a cross platform library that can directly communicate / transfer data with PERL, C, and C++.

• Designed the user interface for Zwrap, an experimental personalized newspaper project.

Technology (Hands-On)

• Application - Emacs, ANT, Make

• Programming Language - Java, Java Servelets, Swing, PERL, C/C++, CVS

PricewaterhouseCoopers (New York, NY) - Project Consultant - [1999]

Hired as the Microsoft technology specialist for the Major League Baseball project.

Accomplishments

• Established and organized the development environment and process for the PwC consulting team.

• Wrote the design specifications for the MLB's internal contract management system.

• Developed standards and set conventions for module based development.

• Programmed a contract module using ASP front-end, Visual Basic middle-tier business and data access components, SQL 6.5, Access and DB2 databases.

• Designed and implemented a project managed system for feature enhancements, and a bug tracking and reporting system using ASP and MS Project.

Technology (Hands-On)

• Application - Visual Studio, VSS, SQL Server 6.5, DB2, Access, MS Project

• Programming Language - ASP, VB COM, HTML

Merrill Lynch (New York, NY) - Technology Leadership Intern - [1999]

Accomplishments

• Designed and implemented an FTP solution to facilitate multiple file linkage of investment profiles to an e-commerce website.

• Led a knowledge management project. Researched the internal information flow infrastructure of Merrill Lynch and created a mock web based "Knowledge and Information Sharing System" to help increase efficiency.

• Web development using ASP front-end, C++ middle-tier business and data access components, Oracle 8i database.

• Database management: designed, created, and modified tables in Oracle using SQL/PL store procedures.

Technology (Hands-On)

• Application - Visual Studio, VSS, Oracle 8i

• Programming Language - ASP, C++, SQL/PL store prodecures.

Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA) - Software Test Engineer - [1999]

Accomplishments

• Wrote full test break out automation for Design-Time Controls in Visual InterDev.

• Converted the automation test engine from Visual Basic 5.0 to Visual Basic 6.0.

• Developed sample applications for Visual InterDev 6.0 that integrated VBScript, Java Script, ASP, Dynamic HTML, and Access Databases. (Runner-up in the application building contest).

• Wrote widgets in VBA that helped increase the efficiency of the test team.

Technology (Hands-On)

• Application - Visual Studio, VSS, Photoshop

• Programming Language - Visual Basic, VBA, VBScript, Javascript, ASP, DHTML, Access Database

Interests/Activities

• MIT Class Officer 2005 to Present

• MIT'S 50K Business Competition, SUMA Case Competition

• Teacher's Assistant in organic chemistry (5.12), SAT Teacher.

• National Collegiate Table Tennis Association http://www.nctta.org/

• National Association of Asian American Professionals http://www.naaap.org/

• Volunteer webmaster for a MIT Sloan class - Finance Theory

• Volunteer webmaster for Sampan Newspaper, Asian American Civic Association http://sampan.org/

• Reading business books, programming

• Basketball, volleyball, golf, mathematics, and teaching

Public Speaking

Transformation agenda: The supply chain of the future - Economist Impact - October 4, 2022

Modernizing Global Trade with James Chen of Flexport- Scale.ai Transform 2021 Conference - March 26, 2021

James Chen, CTO of Flexport joins Scale’s CTO, Brad Porter, to discuss machine learning to modernize freight forwarding.

One-On-One: A Discussion With Flexport CTO James Chen- JOC Events El Dorado - March 02, 2020

Bay Area-based forwarder Flexport has a knack for keeping itself in the news, whether through its massive venture capital funding rounds, publicity around its product developments and acquisitions, or industry skepticism of its current and eventual impact. One of the more interesting developments, which largely flew under the radar in the container shipping industry, was the July 2019 hiring of James Chen as the company’s new CTO. Chen, whose experience includes stints at Amazon and Rakuten, is viewed as somewhat of a star in the Silicon Valley technology engineering community. In a no-holds-barred, one-on-one discussion with JOC Senior Technology Editor Eric Johnson, Chen will address what he views as Flexport’s position in a fragmented and competitive forwarding market; industry naysayers about the Flexport approach: how technology truly differentiates in global forwarding; the relative merits of VC-backed business models versus traditional self-financed, private equity-backed or publicly traded 3PLs; and much more.

Keynote: Digital Disruptions in Ocean Shipping - INTTRA Technology Summit - May 23, 2017

Presented insights into the future of ocean shipping technology.

Imitation to Innovation: How can Asia overcome this challenge? - MIT Asia Business Conference - March 5, 2016

Decoding the business landscape in Asia.  The MIT Asia Business Conference builds bridges between academia and industry, and between East and West to educate and inspire the next generation of leaders in Asia.  The panel will focus the discussion around what does Asia need to do, to move from imitation to innovation in order to insure true long-term, sustained economic growth.

4YFN Awards + Panel of Jury: Digital Media - Mobile World Congress - March 2015

Part of an exciting panels of judges in the digital media track of Mobile World Congress

Tech Planet 2014 - Keynote - Future of Global Ecommerce Technology Platform - SK Planet - November 2014

Overview of technologies that is going to change the future of ecommerce. 3D printing, organic tagging system for product identification, virtual currency, etc...

The Microsoft Conference 2014 - Keynote - Cloud First and Mobile First World! - Microsoft - October 2014

Showcase a real project using cloud first and mobile first design pattern using Microsoft Azure. (starts at 1:08:30)

Overview

These are the courses that I have taken at MIT or have gotten credits for (tested out or AP).

Chemistry

• 5.03 - Principles of Inorganic Chemistry I
• 5.07 - Biological Chemistry
• 5.11 - Principle of Chemical Science
• 5.12 - Organic Chemistry I
• 5.13 - Organic Chemistry II
• 5.31 1 - Introductory Chemical Experimentation
• 5.60 - Thermodynamics and Kinetics
• 5.891 - Special Topics in Chemistry: Biotechnology and Engineering
• 7.013 - Introduction to Biology
• 10.213 - Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

• 10.001 - Introduction to Computer Methods1.00Introduction to Computers and Engineering Problem Solving
• 6.001 - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
• 6.002 - Circuits and Electronics
• 6.003 - Signals and Systems
• 6.004 - Computation Structures
• 6.011 - Introduction to Communication, Control, and Signal Processing
• 6.014 - Electrodynamics
• 6.033 - Computer System Engineering
• 6.034 - Artificial Intelligence
• 6.035 - Computer Language Engineering
• 6.823 - Computer System Architecture
• 6.871 - Knowledge-Based Application Systems
• 6.933 - The Structure of Engineering Revolutions
• 6.170 - Lab in Software Engineering
• 6.190 - Special Laboratory Subjects in EE and CS. (AI)

Math and Physics

• 6.041 - Probabilistic Systems Analysis
• 6.042 - Mathematics for Computer Science
• 18.01 - Calculus I
• 18.02 - Calculus II
• 8.03 - Differential Equations
• 18.06 - Linear Algebra
• 8.01 - Physics I
• 8.02 - Physics II

Economics and Finance

• 14.01 - Principles of Microeconomics
• 14.02 - Principles of Macroeconomics
• 15.415 - Finance Theory

Humanities

• 21W730 - Expository Writing
• 21L003 - Introduction to Fiction
• 21A230 - Contemporary Family

Chinese

• 21F107 - Chinese I (Streamline)
• 2108 - Chinese II (Streamline)
• 21F109 - Chinese III (Streamline)
• 21F110 - Chinese IV (Streamline)

Others

• 2.670 - Mechanical Engineering Tools
• 6.270 - Autonomous Robot Design Competition