Richard J. Siemens

Mr. Siemens is the founder and Chairman of Distacom Group. He has been a significant force in the telecommunication and broadcasting industries for over 30 years. Born and raised in Canada, Mr. Siemens was trained as a Chartered Accountant and joined Distacom Communications in 1973. By 1977 he was at the helm of Distacom and in less than two years, had made it the largest paging company in western Canada.

Beginning 1979, Mr. Siemens came to Hong Kong to start a paging operation called Advance Telecom Services (ATS). In 1984, he formed Hutchison Telephone, a partnership between Distacom, Hutchison Whampoa and Motorola. Hutchison Telephone, which began operation in 1985, and under the leadership of Mr. Siemens in less than four years, the company expanded to have more than 500 employees and turn a profit of US$100 million annually.

In 1990, together with Cable & Wireless and CITIC Pacific, Mr. Siemens put together a Hutchison team which founded AsiaSat, the first satellite company in Asia. Also, in order to provide contents for AsiaSat, Mr. Siemens encouraged a private consortium to form Easy TV, a 24-hour satellite music channel. STAR TV became the first pan-regional broadcaster, and later the music channel of Star.

As early as 1990, Mr. Siemens spearheaded Hutchison's telecom business in the United Kingdom, which was later to become the ORANGE network. At the same time, he built the retail mobile businesses in France and Germany.

By 1993 Hutchison Telecom was operating in 14 countries with over one million subscribers and 6,000 employees. At this time, Mr. Siemens sold his significant share in Hutchison Telecom and re-launched Distacom as an independent company, acquiring new assets and focusing on developing wireless networks in new markets.

Mr. Siemens was Co-Chairman and Executive Director of SUNDAY Communications Limited, a company listed on both Hong Kong Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, which provided GSM and 3G wireless communications and data services in Hong Kong. The company was privatized in December 2006 following its acquisition by PCCW in 2005.

Mr. Siemens was also the Chairman of e-KONG Group Ltd, a company listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK: 524) and maintained a sponsored Level 1 ADR programme through The Bank of New York (Ticker Symbol: EKONY), which created, operated, and invested in telecommunications and technology related businesses globally. Mr. Siemens was the non-executive Chairman of Sprintex Limited, a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, specializing in development and manufacture of patented superchargers used worldwide in the automotive and related industries.

Mr. Siemens resides in Hong Kong with his wife Yvonne. He enjoys tennis, sailing and golf.