Roelof Botha

Chairman of the Board

Botha leads Sequoia Capital for US and Europe. He serves on the boards of MongoDB, Eventbrite, Evernote, Bird, Ethos, Natera, Square, Unity and 23andMe. He led the funding for YouTube when it was just 3 people, and sat on the board until it was acquired by Google. Botha has been named on the Forbes Midas List 13 times.

Prior to Sequoia, Botha was the CFO at PayPal, taking the company public in 2002.

Botha earned a BSc in Actuarial Science, Economics, and Statistics from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Botha is an enthusiastic table tennis player and can be spotted frequently in the halls of 888 Table Tennis Center playing league or taking lessons.

Tony Bates

Board Member

Bates is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Genesys. He leads the company’s strategy, direction and operations in more than 100 countries and oversees a global team of more than 5,000 employees.

Bates has decades of experience steering business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies through major market transitions and rapid scaling. Career highlights include leading Cisco’s Service Provider business, growing its Enterprise and Commercial division to more than $20 billion in annual revenue and serving as CEO of Skype, where he was responsible for expanding the business to over 170 million connected users. Once Skype was acquired by Microsoft, Bates became president where he was responsible for unified communications before serving as executive vice president of business development and developers.

In addition to his role at Genesys, Bates continues to serve on the board of directors at both VMWare and eBay.

Bates is also a passionate table tennis player. He loves duking it out with Botha and won first place in his company table tennis tournament.

Ryu Seung-Min

Board Member

One of the most well respected and beloved table tennis athletes of all-time, Ryu won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics, beating top-seeded Wang Hao (China). Along the way, he defeated 1992 Olympic champion Jan-Ove Waldner. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics he was part of the South Korean team that won the bronze and silver medals respectively.

After from professional table tennis in 2016, Ryu became a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), he was a member and Chair of the Athletes’ Commission of the South Korean National Olympic Committee from 2016 to 2019, and currently serves as the IOC’s representative to the ITTF Executive Committee. Ryu was instrumental in Korea’s bid to secure the rights to the 2020 ITTF World Championships  in Busan.

Max Kogler

Board Member

Kogler is the CEO of PINGPOD (https://pingpod.com), a New York-based start up whose mission is to activate neighborhoods by using technology and an easy, seamless and affordable customer experience. In doing so, the PINGPOD-network aims to elevate the sport of Table Tennis. From beginners to experts, the PINGPOD-network is designed to take people on the journey from Ping Pong to Table Tennis, helping them stay active by promoting a healthy and fun experience next door! As CEO, Kogler is responsible for overall Strategy and Execution.

Max is also the founder and CEO of Kognico, a management consultant firm and the former COO/CFO of Super Soccer Stars. He has a track record of successfully building and managing organizations in sports and media, education, finance and technology.

As COO/CFO of Super Soccer Stars Max oversaw an organization with close to 100,000 players and 800 employees world-wide. Max has a dual undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science, a Masters of Advanced Studies from Cambridge University and an MBA from Stanford.

Kogler is a competitive table tennis player, playing in major tournaments around the United States.