In a career spanning over 30 years,Francis has been involved in various aspects of R&D, technology management, startup companies, venture funding, innovation and entrepreneurship. He had been a research scientist, research institute director, internet startup CEO, investor, professor and government policy maker. He stepped down as the first CEO of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Singapore in 2012 after more than 6 years. While at the NRF, he initiated and implemented many new national initiatives in research, innovation and enterprise, including major international research collaborations, national innovation challenges, proof-of-concept grants, early stage venture funds and technology incubation programmes. He is presently Professorial Fellow for Entrepreneurship at the School of Computing, National University of Singapore (NUS), overseeing the school’s entrepreneurship efforts, teaching entrepreneurship and mentoring university startup companies. He is also Executive Director for the Mediapreneur Incubator, a corporate incubation programme for media startups under national media company, Mediacorp Pte Ltd. He has served for many years on panels awarding startup grants as well as grants to social enterprises. He holds a B Sc (Hon) and PhD in Electrical Engineering, from Loughborough University (UK) and a Masters in Management from MIT Sloan.