René is President and Co-founder of Involve Asia the leading marketing partnerships platform and affiliate network in Southeast Asia. René has been starting and investing in businesses since 1997. He currently sits on the board of a diverse portfolio of companies, some of which he co-founded covering Ad Tech, F&B and Manufacturing. His portfolio has included businesses in logistics, affiliate marketing, fin-tech, publishing, social applications, digital payments, entertainment and manufacturing. René is currently Executive Director for the Southeast Asian partner office of SimilarWeb focused on getting companies access to critical data via its business intelligence solutions.He is also Venture Partner for Cento Ventures, a series A venture capital firm specialised in emerging digital markets in SE Asia.René was formerly Co-founder and CEO of CtrlShift, an independent Ad Tech company in Southeast Asia, managing the P&L and over 150 employees in a business that operated across Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. This included driving the merger of three companies operationally and culturally.The first business he co-founded was a market-making partner to the largest digital media companies around the world providing them a low-risk vehicle to enter these emerging markets. Yahoo!, MSN, Facebook, Waze, Spotify, BBC, ESPN, Disney and countless more relied exclusively on his company to generate advertising revenues, build the foundation for market entry, and establish and maintain a brand identity during their contract tenure. Over two-decades ago, René assisted GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and British American Tobacco navigate the digital world for the first time in the region during the infant years of the Internet when he was the first Director of Interactive Communication at Grey Direct InterActive. At the end of the millennium, as he was just starting out, he was part of a team that built the first Ad Network in Malaysia. René was instrumental in the formation of the Malaysian Digital Association (the apex industry body for Malaysia) where he served as President for 2 terms.