Acer Inc announced yesterday that Sung Hsueh-jen (宋學仁) will join its board of directors as a representative of Hung Rouan Investment Corp (宏榮投資公司). It expects his appointment to enhance Acer’s profile among international investors, a company statement said yesterday.
Acer’s seven-member board of directors also includes Wang Jen-tang (王振堂), Stan Shih (施振榮), Gianfranco Lanci, Walter Deppeler, Philip Peng (彭錦彬) of Smart Capital Corp (智星公司) and Lin Hsin-yi (林信義), former chairman of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (工業技術研究院).
“This is great news for Acer. Sung is an expert in this field and he understands the business inside and out” said Kuo Chung-chien (郭仲乾), executive vice president of Waterland Securities Co (國票證券) via telephone yesterday.
“Sung was the force behind taking Acer public on the US stock exchange via an ADR issue [American Depository Receipts]. Since then Sung’s client roster has included Hon Hai Precision Industrial Co (鴻海) and ASE Global (日月光),” he said.
Acer is the third largest computer manufacturer in the world, behind Hewlett-Packard and Dell Inc.
Stan Shih’s wife, Carolyn Yeh (葉紫華), is behind Hung Rouan Investment Corp.
Sung is currently vice chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia and also an advisory director. Sung joined Goldman Sachs in 1994. He has served in various top positions within the investment bank, first as an executive director in the investment banking division, then as a managing director in 1996.
He became a partner in the firm in 1998 and also served as co-head of corporate finance Asia-Pacific in 2003 and co-head of the Asia principal investment area in 2005.
Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Sung worked for many years in the investment banking industry in Tokyo, London, Sydney and Hong Kong.
He holds an MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, a masters from National Chengchi University, and a bachelor’s from National Chiaotung University.
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