Re-imagining Asia's sports and entertainment destinations #SAS23

A global executive with more than 25 years of experience as a CEO, he specializes in delivering stadiums and temporary infrastructure for the world’s most significant sporting events. Notably, he led the successful delivery of seven new stadiums with a total seating capacity of approximately 300,000 for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and managed the overlay for official sites for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

In his most recent role, he served as the Technical Services Director for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Previously, he was the Chief Executive Officer at Sport-Engineering in Moscow, where he was responsible for building and managing FIFA World Cup facilities.

With a technical and engineering background, he is an expert in meeting FIFA requirements and specializes in managing large-scale infrastructure projects. He also has deep knowledge of the specifics of clients’ work in large-scale infrastructure projects. His track record of delivering these complex projects within tight timelines is evidence of his capability to assume the highest level of responsibility.

His strong leadership qualities, coupled with his ability to empower teams and adapt to rapidly changing environments, set the strategic direction for all his endeavors. At the core of his success is his talent for building and managing relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders, including government officials, contractors, and clients.

Janice joined Populous in 2019, fulfilling her aspirations to work within a global firm specialising in innovative sports architecture and design. Prior to joining Populous, she gained over five years of design coordination experience in various retail, transport orientated development and mixed-use projects across China.

Based in Hong Kong, Janice is currently working on the world class entertainment facilities of Kai Tak Sports Park. As a UK Registered Architect, she has been the Design Lead for the Construction Phase of the South Precinct along with a member of the Design Development team for the 50,000 seat Main Stadium. The Main Stadium is an International standard facility with a retractable roof and a flexible and transformable pitch system capable in hosting wide range of international sports events like Rugby 7’s and concerts without being affected by different weather conditions.

Janice has personal interests in public infrastructure projects and master planning, Janice has found her passion for architecture, while also volunteering her time to renovate a community project in Hong Kong. She completed her Masters in Architecture at University College London – Bartlett School of Architecture, where she also gained her Bachelor of Architecture.

Engaged in consulting on strategy and planning, business improvement, system conception and procurement support, mainly for government offices. From 2013, he started consulting for sports and entertainment industry. He promotes consulting such as planning support for new businesses and services.

His references include:

• Project director of the planning concept of a sport complex facility for a national university.
• Project director of the planning ICT Strategy for new arena.
• Project director of a certain independent administrative office’s lottery refund system & infrastructure renovation project .
• Project director of “New Athlete discovery” System construction and maintenance.
• Project director of a feasibility study for introducing new services (sports-related) at a major game company.
• Project director of a feasibility study on the introduction of new overseas services (sports-related) in a major facility operation business.
• Project director of a joint project with a major entertainment company to develop and commercialize an application that visualizes dance skills.

He specializes in service development that emphasizes “empathy” and with the concept “Proposals are meaningless if they cannot be realized“.

Darren is ASM Global’s Executive Director of Kai Tak Sports Park in Hong Kong. Expected to be completed in the second half of 2024, the 28  hectare precinct comprises a 50,000 seat stadium, 10,000 capacity arena, 5,000 seat public sports ground, 66,000 m2 of retail space, and public open spaces. Darren leads the team who will ultimately operate this US$3.8bn project.

Prior to his current role Darren was a consultant for the New South Wales Government, leading the business case for the redevelopment of Stadium Australia (now known as Accor Stadium) in Sydney and prior to that as an operations adviser for the development of Bankwest Stadium in Western Sydney.

Until July 2018 Darren spent nearly five years as Chief Executive of Vbase, manager of Christchurch’s leading venues including Horncastle Arena, AMI Stadium, Hagley Oval, Air Force Museum Wigram, and the Christchurch Town Hall.

Before moving to Vbase Darren spent seven years in Dunedin, firstly working as the Chief Executive of the trust established to masterplan and build Forsyth Barr Stadium in time for Rugby World Cup 2011.  Latterly he was the Chief Executive of Dunedin Venues, operator of the stadium as well as the Dunedin Centre and Town Hall.

As a former Olympian (1984 Los Angeles) and Asian Games medalist, Jin Teik’s illustrious 32-years professional career spanned both private and public sectors in multiple industries, with residence in USA, China, and Singapore. He is a trusted, people-centric senior leader who specializes in business turnaround, mega project ideation-startup-operations, place making in mixed use developments, data- driven digital transformation, and complex stakeholder management (including public-private-people partnerships).

between 1999 and 2019, he led the conceptualisation, launch, operations, & management of Singapore Sports Hub – the world’s largest & most complex PPP (public private partnership) social infrastructure DBFO project across 35 hectares. A pioneer in the mixed use development for a sports entertainment lifestyle city with world class facilities (programming, event services, venue/facility management, retail operations, etc). By end Year 4 2018 & working with a complex network of stakeholders (B2G, B2B, B2C), we delivered 220 events & attracted 3 million attendees/users with a total of 15 million footfall.

Prior to his Sports Hub role, he spent six years as CEO of Sport Singapore where he implemented the national blueprint for Sporting Singapore across 3 thrusts, 6 targets, 40 strategies; thereby delivering national economic returns (GDP contribution) from S$300 million (2000) to S$1 billion (2008) and resulting in Singapore winning: 1) Gold for Sports City Award @International Sports Events Management Awards 2010; 2) Runners-Up for Ultimate Sports City Award @Sport Accord Convention 2010.

Today, Jin Teik operates his own consultancy business, namely in board advisory and strategic business management, after serving as CEO at American Ethane Capital, Singapore Sports Hub, Hyflux China, Singapore Sports Council, and other senior leadership roles in National Starch (Ingredion) and DuPont Company. Presently, he is Regional Managing Director for Ascention Consulting, Asia Pacific’s leading Clean Data experts in Data Management, Strategy, Culture, and Enablement.

Other roles include: Chairman & Non-Executive Director (Approved Technology Solutions, UK), Senior Advisor (Xctuality, ASICS Asia, eSports Players League, Singapore Rowing), and Board Member (Beyond Sport, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore Science Centre, Health Promotion Board).

Jin Teik has an MBA & BSc Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University, USA. He attended Executive Education classes at Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania, USA), Kellogg Business School (Northwestern University, USA), 6th Leaders in Administration Program (Civil Service College, Public Service Division, Singapore), and Advanced Leaders Program-Future China (Business China, Nanyang Business School Singapore.)

Matt Beyer is the CEO and co-founder of EASL, where he is responsible for overall strategy, operations, league structure and relationships with FIBA, leagues and teams. He has 15 years’ experience working in China and other Asian markets, mostly in sport, but also in PR and government relations in Beijing.

In Fall 2023, EASL is launching its first, full season of home-and-away fixtures, featuring the top teams from B.LEAGUE (Japan), Korean Basketball League (KBL), Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and P. LEAGUE+ (Chinese Taipei).

Prior to EASL, Matt founded ALTIUS, China’s largest basketball agency, in 2012. ALTIUS represented a commanding share of the CBA’s top athletes. He is the only foreigner ever to have sat the Chinese Sports Agent Certification Exam and the only non-Chinese, government-certified sports agent in the country.

Matt is fluent in Mandarin and has honors degrees in Chinese Literature, East Asian Studies and Journalism ​from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In over 20 years with Populous, Richard has run major projects in the UK, Portugal, Italy, New Zealand and Australia, and consequently, has significant experience in delivering large scale, highly complex buildings. Richard has led the design teams on some of the world’s greatest public architect projects including the Melbourne and Olympic Parks Redevelopment, Wembley Stadium, the London 2012 Olympic Master Plan, ICC Sydney, Eden Park in New Zealand and Soccer City in Johannesburg. 

A Senior Principal and Director of the firm, Richard is currently based in Hong Kong. As Principal in Charge for the Kai Tak Sports Park, he leads the design team transforming the 28-hectare former airport site into an urban oasis, a new destination which integrates high quality sports venues with retail, wellness, recreational and community spaces.

Richard is focused on delivering unique experiences to people through fan engagement and interaction, and exploring how venues become part of the urban fabric of the cities and communities they sit within.

Having joined the Hong Kong, China Rugby in 2003 as the Community Rugby Manager, Robbie assumed the role of CEO in May 2017. Prior to the Union, he spent 11 years in the Hong Kong Police Force, where he served in a number of roles including presenter of the “Police Report” TV show.

He has a MA (Oxon) and completed a PGC in Sports & Recreation Management at HKU Space in 2001. He is a Director of the local charity Operation Breakthrough and was instrumental in setting up the HKCR Community Foundation – Rugby For Good, both of which use sport as a medium to tackle social issues. He was awarded a MBE in 2019 for services to philanthropy and UK-Hong Kong relations.

Dr Kavita Gonsalves is an architect, researcher and strategist who works towards creating sustainable futures at the intersection of people and place. With a background in architecture and design, she has 13+ years of experience in trans-disciplinary projects of sustainable design, workplace design, design research, graphic design, architecture, urban design, and design strategy. Kavita takes a ‘research to design’ approach and has extensive experience in sustainable system processes, sustainability audits, green building rating systems, sustainable architecture education, and developing innovative approaches to place-centric interventions.

Kavita’s project experience cuts across residential, retail, workplace, non-profit, innovation hubs, and hospitality. She combines creativity with care for the environment and is concerned with social, economic and environmental parameters. This includes conducting feasibility studies, sustainable design assistance, sustainability submittal documentation and project management. Kavita’s PhD research titled “Radical Placemaking” brought her extensive experience and skills to the forefront as she focused on the use of emerging technologies as tools for marginalized communities to engage in creative placemaking towards social sustainability goals.

Paul is 42-year venue management veteran, with in excess of 5,500 major events safely and successfully managed, with the support of many focussed and highly motivated people.

Venues managed include Wembley Stadium, Wembley Arena, Principality Stadium and Parc y Scarlets in the UK, Suncorp Stadium, Marvel Stadium and Qudos Bank Arena in Australia. Paul is now responsible for managing ASM Global’s management services at Kai Tak Sports Park, Hong Kong (50,000 cap stadium, 10,000 arena, 5,000 athletics stadium, 10,000 festival site), Kuala Lumpur Sports City, Malaysia (87,000 stadium, 16,000 arena, 10,000 hockey stadium), Shenzhen World, China(13,000 arena, 1,750 plenary hall, 400,000sqm exhibition centre), UOB Live (6,000 hall) and Bangkok Arena (18,000 arena), Thailand.

Ismael is a highly skilled project architect with over 12 years’ architectural experience. He joined Populous in 2019 and is based in the Hong Kong office.

He is currently working on the construction phase of Kai Tak Sport Park, a world-class entertainment precinct over 28 hectares beside the Harbour.  As the Populous design team Lead for the North Precinct, his key responsibilities include the Design Development and Construction Coordination of the Public Sports Ground and the Indoor Sports Centre. These two venues are highly focussed on increasing community engagement, as well as integrating retail and wellness facilities as part of Government’s Sport for All brief.

Ismael has interests across various design domains including E-sports, motorsports, the metaverse, new technologies and stadia. This diverse range of interests keeps him engaged with the latest trends and advancements, enabling him to bring innovative ideas into his architectural projects.  In addition to his architectural work, Ismael has a passion for architecture photography and aerial videography. With an eye for detail and an artistic sensibility, he captures the essence and beauty of architectural structures through photography.