PropTech & Innovation Runway

Sigrid is the Chief Executive Officer of Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA). Based in Singapore, she is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction, initiatives and operations of the association across Asia Pacific. Under her leadership, APREA repositioned to an industry trade group focusing on real estate and infrastructure.

Sigrid joined APREA’s executive team in January 2019.

Prior to APREA, she served as Managing Director of Asia Pacific Research and Advisory Services of Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) from 2010 through 2018, where she was responsible for research, thought leadership, strategy formulation and client management.  Before relocating to Singapore, she was based in Washington, D.C. and led C&W’s U.S. research group in the Mid-Atlantic region, overseeing all aspects of market research activities in the Washington, DC; Virginia; Suburban Maryland, Baltimore; and Philadelphia areas. Prior to joining C&W, Sigrid served as a Senior Economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In that position, she developed NAR’s office, warehouse, retail, multi-family housing, and international research programs.

A recognized expert in global economic, public policy and real estate issues, Sigrid is a frequent speaker at industry events.  Her commentary on commercial and residential real estate markets is also regularly featured in a wide array of global publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, New York Times and Reuters. Additionally, she has made several television appearances on financial networks and radio such as CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, National Public Radio and Channel News Asia.

Sigrid holds a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and a Master’s degree in Economics from Pennsylvania State University. She is a member of several civic groups including the Rotary Club of Raffles City in Singapore, where she has served in various leadership positions, and serves in the Executive Committee of the Crohn’s & Colitis Society of Singapore.

With 30+ years’ experience dedicated to real estate and technology, Bernie is a leader in digital transformation in real estate and using data to create a more competitive and collaborative environment. Currently responsible for the growth of Yardi Systems in Asia Pacific, Bernie lives in Hong Kong and is a qualified accountant and economist.

He supports real estate clients with Retail, Commercial, Industrial, Residential and Mixed-Use assets, helping them to grow their operations, create efficiencies, and gain better insight into their business. His expertise includes asset and investment management, private equity, operations improvement, program and project management, finance, technology implementation and compliance.

Bernie has led large-scale technology projects, as well as led and supported Proptech start-ups, across Australia, the USA, Middle East, Asia and Europe. He has over 60 publications to his name, and extensive public speaking experience. He is actively working with several charities focused on the marine environment and feeding those in need in Hong Kong.

Cofounder & CRO, Kalpnik Technologies & Chief Mentor, Brigade REAP comes with over 3 decades of diverse experience covering Marketing,  Sales, Brand building, Customer Relations, Revenue Management, Pricing, P&L responsibility, Entrepreneurship, Mentorship & Investing. He has been instrumental in the creation of several successful brands in India including award winning & memorable campaigns like Hamara Bajaj, Maruti Omni, Maruti Gypsy, Kawasaki Cheetah, Toyota Qualis, Hitachi air conditioners among others. A win at Cannes was the crowning glory in a career spanning 15 years in Advertising and Brand building.

His corporate stints include:
• Sr VP Contract advertising
• Director Leo Burnett,
• Executive Vice President- Marketing for Oberoi Hotels and Resorts worldwide
• Managing Director -GenNext Ventures, a Reliance Industries sponsored venture fund
His Entrepreneurial stints include
• Founder CEO of Propmart, one of India’s 1st Integrated Real estate Digital platform
• Chief Revenue Officer at Air Deccan - India's pioneer in the Low Cost Airline business
• Founder & CEO of Taggle a Group buying platform.
• Co-founder & CRO of Kalpnik, the world’s 1st AR/VR devotional platform.

Mentorship:
John helped conceptualise and set up Gennext Hub, Reliance Industries Accelerator program for Young tech startups, Brigade REAP, Asia’s 1st PropTech accelerator program and was also an advisor to Cisco’s Launch pad accelerator program. He has mentored close to 50 young minds with 1 Unicorn and several others on the path to sustained success.

Rajesh Sreenivasan heads the TMT Practice at Rajah & Tann and has been advising clients on legal, regulatory and policy matters relating to technology,
cybersecurity, data protection, telecommunications, electronic commerce, cloud computing, digital forensics and digital media for over twenty years.

His clients include state governments and multinational corporations in the telecommunications, computer hardware and software sectors, social media, government linked companies and statutory boards. On the regional front, Rajesh has been engaged by the ASEAN Secretariat to facilitate a pan-ASEAN forum on legislative and regulatory reforms to collectively address convergence of IT, telecoms and broadcasting across all 10 members countries and by the Commonwealth Secretariat to co-lead an e-government capacity building exercise involving all member Caribbean nations. Rajesh is also the contributing author for the Singapore Chapter of Sweet & Maxwell’s Data Protection Laws of the World since 2010 and is a member of the Asia Advisory Board of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. On the corporate front, he sits on the Board of MediaCorp, Singapore’s national broadcaster. He has been unanimously cited as a leading lawyer in the TMT sector in Singapore by all major legal ranking agencies. In 2018, he cofounded Rajah & Tann Technologies Pte Ltd, the corporate arm of Rajah & Tann Asia that provides market leading techenabled legal solutions to clients.

Rajesh is named as a Leading Lawyer for TMT in publications such as Chambers Asia Pacific and The Legal 500 Asia  Pacific since 2008. According to Chambers Asia Pacific (2018), Rajesh is “highly prized by multinational technology companies for his expertise in data protection, telecoms regulation and cybersecurity.” He has been further recognised as a Market-leading lawyer for IT, Telco & Media by Asialaw Profiles (2019).

Rajesh was first recognised by Best Lawyers in Singapore in 2008, and has been consistently regarded by his peers through to the 2019 edition. He has been named the 2019 “Lawyer of the Year” for Information Technology Law in Singapore by the same publication as well.

Rajesh has also been ranked as one of the world’s leading practitioners for Data in Who’s Who Legal (2019) and listed as a leading lawyer in International Who’s Who of Telecommunications Lawyers by Global Competition Review and the International Financial Law Review IT and Telecoms Survey. An international panel of lawyers selected Rajesh to be listed in the Guide to the World’s Leading Technology, Media and Telecoms Lawyers, a Euromoney Legal expert guides publication. He is also recognised in the regional top 10 pioneer list of standout legal sector innovators by Financial Times’ 2018 Asia Pacific Innovative Lawyers report.