CEO 
Social Entrepreneur
Market Design Economist

Highlighted Projects

Innovorsa Group
(2009 - Current)

Family Office investment group incubating startups in purpose-led community ecosystems, specifically multi-sided digital platforms. Go to Innovorsa.

The HAT Microserver
(2013 - Current)

Beginning in 2013, the £1.2m HAT (“Hub-of-All-Things”) Research Project has spawned more than £33m grant projects on decentralised data economy. As principal investigator and the inventor of the HAT Microserver, Irene is also the group CEO of Dataswyft, the company deploying the technology. Go to Dataswyft.

Rolls Royce
(2011)

Rolls Royce was one of Irene’s early market design projects to realign human-engineering systems towards value-based outcomes of service contracts. Research Paper.

Empress Cruise Lines
(1992 - 1996)

Irene pioneered cruising in Southeast Asia with Empress Cruise Lines, building the business to a turnover was USD200m per month, In May 1996, She sold the company to Metroplex. Story from 1995.

CEO in SA Travel Group
(1989 - 1992)

It was a well known brand in Malaysia with the business turning over RM32m per annum (USD8m), but with losses of USD125k p.a. At 26, and with only a Physics degree, Irene took over the company, negotiated the debt and turned the company around in 1992 by diversifying into cruise charters. Go to SA Travel.

Testimonials

“

Nick Brown

CEO, Lloyds Register

“ Professor Irene Ng has been a member of the Lloyed’s Register Advisory board for four years. As the shipping industry continues to evolve and transform, we have highly benefited from Irene’s insight on big data, automation and AI, as part of our digitalisation journey.

Her engaging personality and energy has also inspired great debate and valuable discussions with the fellow board members. “

Capt Koh Cen Tien

Co-Founder of Verofax

“ Dr Irene, thank you for your amazing contribution to our partnership and projects over the past two years. You have been an inspiration, always ready to help, and there to support us in every situation.

Your commitment, professionalism, and innovative thinking have made our collaboration a success and a pleasure.

You have a remarkable vision and creativity that makes our projects stand out and I look forward to continuing our fruitful relationship in the future. “

Ivan Martimer-Schutts

Former World Bank Group staff

“ Irene is a unique entrepreneur and academic, thinking several steps ahead in the evolution of both the business and policy of data markets. She has a sharp business acumen, developing pragmatic business models that still never lose sight of the longer structural market transformations we need to put individuals closer to the center of the international digital economy “

Professor Jon Crowcroft

Marconi Professor of Communications Systems

” Irene is a veritable firehose of great ideas for the creation of new markets in digital goods and services.

Her approach is rooted in deep experience from the hard-nosed commercial world, combined with longtime immersion in the highly innovative tech ecosystem in Cambridge.

This mix is extremely rare, and nigh on unstoppable. ”

Videos

Irene talks about the HAT

Businesses believe that providing data privacy and control is a responsibility (like CSR) that would be costly. We present a people centric data business model that exponentially increases the commercial value of personal data for organizations, unlocking the value of data and providing RoI to investments in data capabilities.

Sharing her unique perspective of both business and academia, former entrepreneur Irene Ng discusses the topics covered in her new book 'Creating New Markets in the Digital Economy: Value and Worth' (Cambridge University Press, 2014). These include the 'co-creation of value' concept and radically new ways to create value from products and services.

Interview with Professor Irene Ng prior to her lecture on 18 November 2015, entitled ‘The Evolution of Business Models’. Part of the Wolfson @ 50 Lecture Series.