Our core management team brings decades of combined experience and strong achievements in investing, strategy, transactions, and corporate management across Asia.
The management team is supported closely by our key advisors, who are highly successful entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders in Asia and globally, with proven track records developed over several combined decades.
Together, we have a shared passion for early-stage investing and entrepeneurship. Our particular blend of experiences and skills gives us a unique perspective on investments and the ability to engage deeply with businesses on delivering growth and unlocking value.
Jeffrey Lu
Managing Director
Jeff is a co-founder of Goodman Capital and co-manages the firm. He brings deep business, investing, and entrepreneurial experience to the team. He has held C-suite and corporate-level management roles at both successful start-ups and billion-dollar companies, including:
- Head of Strategy and the CEO's #2 at AAE Travel (Asian online travel business), where he developed and drove the strategic plan for rapid growth to 10 Asian countries and profitability, leading to >17X shareholder returns in 3.5 years (exit at US$345M valuation). He led strategy, analytics, CEO's Office, supply, and special projects
- Group Head in the Commercial division and Head of Strategy in Tony Fernandes's CEO's Office at AirAsia (Asia's #1 low cost airline)
- Establishing Think BIG Sdn Bhd and serving as a director (later invested in by AIMIA [TSX:AIM] and valued at US$120M in 2015)
- Founding roles in mixed-use real estate developments in the US and Asia with gross development values in the hundreds of millions
Jeff also worked at Bain & Company as a strategy consultant, where he advised PE firms, sovereign wealth funds, and corporations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, and travel sectors. He graduated summa cum laude (highest honors) from the University of Pennsylvania.
Daphne Teo
Managing Director
Daphne is a co-founder of Goodman Capital and co-manages the firm. She has considerable investing and transactional experience. She serves as Chief Investment Officer of D3 Capital, a private equity firm affiliated with Goodman Capital. At D3 Capital she has executed and overseen a number of multi-million investments in real estate and natural resources across Asia. She also serves as a board director at selected portfolio companies. In addition, she acts as a consultant to real estate developments and has participated deeply on Myanmar market entry activities.
Daphne previously worked at Goldman Sachs and HSBC in the Investment Banking Divisions, where she gained a large amount of investment and transactional exposure. She primarily worked in the metals & mining and industrials sectors and the Asia, Africa, and Europe markets.
Daphne graduated highest honors from Purdue University and with honors from Stanford University.
Timothy Lu, M.D., Ph. D
Advisor
Tim acts as a key advisor for the company in our biotech activities. He is an Associate Professor at MIT, the leader of MIT's Synthetic Biology Group, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Tim is a pioneer in applying synthetic biology to tackle important medical and industrial problems. Among the numerous awards he's received are the NIH New Innovator Award, the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award.
In addition to being an accomplished physician-scientist researcher, Tim is a successful entrepreneur. Among the companies he has founded include Sample6 Inc. and Synlogic Inc., US-based venture-backed companies using synthetic biology to develop next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics for use in food safety and the human microbiome, respectively. The companies have raised ~US$60M of funding in multiple rounds from leading VCs and investors, including Atlas Ventures, NEA, Gates Foundation, Canaan Partners, Chevron, and Flybridge, and Sample6 is now shipping disruptive synthetic biology-based commercial products. He has also co-founded Engine Biosciences within the Goodman Capital umbrella.
Tim received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School, his Ph.D. from the Harvard-MIT Sciences and Technology Program, and his S.B. and S.M. from MIT.
Derek is an entrepreneur-in-residence with Goodman Capital. He works with the investment team on sourcing opportunities and incubating ideas and companies with hands-on operations. His current project with the Goodman Capital team is an online coaching marketplace business in Asia.
Derek previously worked at News Corp and Salem Partners, a Californian boutique investment bank with industry experience in Media & Entertainment, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Real Estate, and Defense. He received his MBA from INSEAD and his B.S.E.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.
