ASTRI announces appointment of new CEO

June 24, 2014 - PRLog -- The Board of Directors of Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) today announced the appointment of Dr Franklin Tong Fuk-kay as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ASTRI with effect from 1 September 2014. He will serve as CEO (Designate) from 1 July until the end of August.

Dr Tong is currently Deputy General Manager and Chief Technology Officer of Hisense Broadband Multimedia Technologies Co. Ltd and Chief Executive Officer of Archcom Technology Inc., a subsidiary of Hisense. While at Hisense, he led the acquisition of Multiplex, a US venture-based semiconductor laser fab, with most of its staff from Bell Labs.  As CEO of Archcom, he completely overhauled its management and system, launched several new products and successfully turned it into a profitable company within a year.

Before joining Hisense in February 2013, he was a Vice President of SAE Magnetics (HK) Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of TDK Corporation focusing on the provision of all range of storage solutions and products. During his eight-year tenure at SAE, he was the pioneer in the establishment of its optical component business unit. By the time of his departure, SAE had launched many advanced optical products that were used in data centre and data communication, as well as for consumer electronics market. Together with other key members of the group, he also successfully built the laser capability of TDK/SAE.

Dr Tong took up the position of Head of Optical Communications Component Group at ASTRI in 2001, under a secondment arrangement with the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). While at ASTRI, he brought to fruition in 2004 SAE’s acquisition of his research team as well as the technologies his team developed, making it the first successful spin-off case of a government funded research and development centre.

Earlier in his professional life, Dr Tong had a successful sojourn at IBM Research from 1987 to 1996, first working on blue-green emitting solid-state lasers for optical recording and later on multi-wavelength optical communications modules and systems. He received numerous awards from IBM, including the prestigious IBM Outstanding Innovation Award in 1995.

Dr Tong was a Professor at the Information Engineering Department of CUHK from 1996 to 2004. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of the same Department, thus maintaining a close tie with the academia.

Dr Tong obtained his PhD degree from Columbia University in 1987 with his thesis research conducted at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the US.

Dr Tong has been very active in community and professional activities. Apart from serving as a Director of the ASTRI Board from March 2012 to May 2014, he was also consultant to several local and international companies, including Lucent Technologies in 2000. From 1993 to 2004 Dr Tong was an Associate Editor for IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, and served as programme chairman and technical committee member for numerous conferences. He has authored and co-authored about 200 papers and was awarded 19 patents.

Mr Wong Ming-yam, Chairman of the ASTRI Board, said he and his Board members are looking forward to working closely with Dr Tong in leading ASTRI to meet the challenges ahead and pursue its public mission.  He also expressed the Board's appreciation of the outgoing CEO Dr Nim Cheung for his dedicated and valuable service to ASTRI for the past years.