Emerging Leaders Forum (ELF)

Emerging Leaders Forum (ELF) aims to provide a platform in the Chinese entrepreneurship community for the value-added interaction among entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers.  Working closely with HYSTA’s VC Group and Executive Club, ELF improves entrepreneurship ecosystem among the major players in Silicon Valley. ELF’s mission is to promote entrepreneurship by facilitating the interaction between entrepreneurs and investors, as well as between entrepreneurs and service providers. In addition, ELF focuses on specific topics of interest and career development to aspiring Chinese entrepreneurs and professionals.

Each year, ELF hosts various workshops to nurture early start-up companies and to educate and motivate people with innovation to start their own businesses. In addition, ELF hosts event such as “Mentoring to Success” annually to help Silicon Valley professionals to establish mentor relationships with business leaders. By limiting the size of events and leveraging HYSTA’s extensive network, ELF provides an intimate platform for members to network with like-minded comrades and helps Chinese professionals broaden their knowledge base and advance their careers.

Events at ELF are open to the public and give prior consideration to its members. For more information, please contact elf@hysta.org. ELF’s membership is open to anyone, please register membership here.  Upon registration, please send an email to elf@hysta.org with your receipt to notify us.

ELF seeks to connect high-potential startups/entrepreneurs with successful investors and lawyers and help to develop the next generation of entrepreneurs. Teaming up with top-tier VC and Law Firms, ELF proudly presents VC-Connect Series, where entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to pitch to different investors and get valuable advices from well experienced law firms.

HYSTA ELF is Now Accepting Executive Summaries

ELF is currently accepting executive summaries (2-page max) for its ongoing VC-Connect Series' pitch event, as well as business plan competition at our Annual Entrepreneur Boot Camp (EBC). Upon consent, the submitted executive summary will be forwarded and reviewed by participating VCs or Law Firms.  The executive summary should include a description of the market opportunity, product or service being offered, intellectual property, revenue model, partners and customers, competition, management team and financial projections. Summaries with insufficient information will be dismissed.

Interested parties should submit their executive summaries to  submit.bootcamp@hysta.us.  In the email, please specify the following elements to help ELF better serve you:

·       Company’s Name

·       Name of the Founder(s)

·       Email and Phone Numbers

·       Industry Type (telecommunication, web 2.0, etc)

·       Company’s Current Stage (idea, seed, early, expansion… etc).

Executive summaries will be kept and handled with strict confidentiality within HYSTA. ELF will not forward any executive summary to any third party (including investors and law firms) without founder’s prior consent. Most of the pitch to VC sessions is held privately, and founders will always be notified whether an up-coming pitch event is done privately or publicly. Please email elf@hysta.org for additional information.

Management Team:

Michael Lin, Co-director

Michael has joined HYSTA’s volunteer force since 2007’s Annual Conference. In the same year, he joined ELF’s core team and helped managing the overall program for the business plan competition at the 2007 Entrepreneur Annual Boot Camp. In addition to HYSTA, Michael has held various leadership positions at Monte Jade and Monte Jade Asian American.

Michael is a young and passionate person, who brings lots of energy and new ideas to the team. He is a graduate of UC Santa Barbara and is currently an associate at Harbinger Venture Management.

David is passionate about entrepreneurship, technology/innovation, and community building, which have been the focus of his non-profit effort in HYSTA and other bay area non-profit organizations. He brings with him both entrepreneurial and coporate experience. With deep understanding of the needs from entrepreneurs and career-minded professionals, David strives to build ELF into a vibrant community, and a part of the investor/startup/service-provider ecosystem.

David currently works at Yahoo!, building its next-gen online advertising platform. He holds MS in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

·       Over 20 startups had the opportunities to pitch to tier-one VCs in private meetings.

·       Over 40 companies had the opportunities to join the 1-on-1 meetings with VCs.

·       Over 100 startups had participated ELF's educational series to increase their visibility to investors.