Board of Directors
Adrian Li
Jonathan Palley
James Liu
Lawrence Tse
Adrian Li: Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder
Adrian is responsible for managing the overall operations for Idapted and overseeing the business development and sales for its flagship products, EQEnglish, StudioChinese and the Idapted Live Learning System.
Prior to starting Idapted, Adrian worked for Pepsi in Shanghai in a project management role where he was responsible for coordinating the launch of a new product. In 2001, Adrian worked with JPMorgan based in London where he advised on acquisition and growth strategy for financial institutions. Adrian then joined a social enterprise incubator, Globalegacy, in 2004 where he advised entrepreneurs starting for-profit social ventures.
Adrian has a passion for education and founded a UK based charity; CNYTrust; which has raised thousands of pounds (GBP) to support children in rural China pursue education. The Trust has provided scholarships to many Chinese students and has also built a primary school in the village of Da Miao, China. More information may be found at www.cnytrust.org.
Adrian completed his degree in Economics at Cambridge University and holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He speaks English, Mandarin and Cantonese and enjoys training for marathons and ironman triathlon events in his spare time.
Jonathan is responsible for the design, development and deployment of Idapted's products and technology.
Jonathan Palley has always had a keen and active interest in educational technology and languages. He has technological experience in developing software for the education market and a demonstrated ability to manage multi-discipline projects. He is the developer of Virtual FlashCards, a shareware electronic flashcard program that has been downloaded over 250,000 times and is used worldwide. Through interacting with hundreds of Virtual FlashCards users he has a strong understanding of how people interact with computer based learning systems.
He has also developed medical imaging and scientific instrument control software and can program computers in most modern languages and systems.
Jonathan served as the Executive Producer of a nationally recognized theater ensemble, where he managed a large team of actors, directors, designers and technicians in producing a full season of free Shakespeare plays viewed by thousands of people. He has training and experience in acting and improvising and is an avid student of how the theory behind improvised theater can be applied to creative and constructive teamwork. He holds a B.S. in Physics from Stanford University.
James Liu is the Co-COO of Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI), the second largest private internet company in China that owns and operates leading online services including mop.com, xiaonei.com, uume.com, donews.com, and renren.com. James was instrumental in helping OPI raise 400 million dollars from leading investors such as Softbank in 2008. James joined OPI through the acquisition of UUMe which he founded in 2003 as the first social networking site in China.
Before that, James was heading the marketing group with the Silicon Valley based Fortinet, and helped the company grow revenue from zero to US$ 33 million within 2 years. James was a senior product manager for two years with Siebel Systems, and worked as Product Manager at Netscape and Cisco as well while at Stanford. James served as consultant to eBay and helped the company develop market entry strategies into the global Chinese markets. Before that, James worked with BCG as a management consultant for three years.
James is an engineer by training. He holds dual degrees in CS and in Economics, both from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, He received his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar.
Lawrence Tse is a partner and co-founder of Gobi Partners and has over 9 years of venture capital experience. Gobi is a China-based venture capital firm with over US$200 million under management focusing on early stage investments in China’s IT and digital media industries. Gobi’s strategic partners include IBM, NTT DOCOMO, McGraw-Hill, Sierra Ventures, Steamboat Ventures, and Nokia Growth Partners. Prior to Gobi, Lawrence served as an Associate for the Beijing Technology Development Fund backed by Beijing Enterprises and Tsinghua University Enterprise Group. He holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management from Stanford University.
Lawrence Tse, Gobi Partners