Jen Lin is Elephant’s New Zealand County Director with more than a decade’s experience in pioneering roles, and 10 years involvement in South East Asia’s tech startup ecosystems, at the same time global exposure in Silicon Valley, Europe and Asia.
Jen Lin has built her reputation as a skilled operator with her strength in project management and business operations in implementing strategies and bringing companies as well as projects to life. Her roles have provided her extensive engagement with Board of Directors, government ministries and shareholders.
During her tenure in SE Asia, Jen Lin has built business operations and managed core product development for two travel startups in Malaysia and Singapore – taking those companies successfully from 0 to revenue.
Jen Lin was Chief of Staff to the CEO and founding team member at a Malaysian government agency in 2014. The agency’s two-fold mandate was to move the economic needle for Malaysia – by enhancing the tech startup ecosystem by increasing the number of fundable, high-growth and scalable startups that will succeed at regional or global scale; and to support the development of social entrepreneurs focused on solving social and environmental issues. The agency saw significant impact through its core activities of education, exposure and its global accelerator programme in its first 2 years of operations.
She was then subsequently engaged to work on integration business operations of a Malaysian public listed company that had acquired an on-demand car sharing startup to future proof its car rental and leasing business unit. This was important to balance structure and business support between the two businesses post-acquisition.
Upon returning to New Zealand late 2020, Jen Lin has actively mentored at events/programmes such as Startup Weekends, The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme, Lightning Lab and Ministry of Awesome organised accelerators.
Jen Lin is committed to building the tech and innovation ecosystem in New Zealand as she believes that it is key to driving the country’s economy forward. With the belief that no one should be left behind, she is passionate about addressing food security and sovereignty challenges, and capability building initiatives.