Agora announces the promotion of three senior executives and the addition of a new Chief Security Officer as the metaverse spurs RTE demand globally
SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 24, 2022 — Agora, Inc. (NASDAQ: API) (“Agora”), a pioneer and leading platform for real-time engagement APIs, today announced the promotion of key executives and a new hire designed to drive innovation and reinforce security as Agora continues its growth globally.
Effective immediately, Stanley Wei will expand his responsibilities as Chief Strategy Officer to lead strategy as well as commercial operations globally. Agora Co-founder Tony Wang is named the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), while Agora veteran Virginia Liu becomes Agora’s first-ever Chief Experience Officer (CXO), both effective immediately.
Agora is also announcing the hiring of Roger Hale, the former Chief Security Officer at BigID, a data-centric personal data privacy and protection company. He joins Agora as Chief Security Officer.
The personnel announcements come at a time of global business momentum and adoption for Agora as more developers look to real-time engagement (RTE) to deliver metaverse experiences at scale. From XR to live-streaming, the demand for RTE technologies across every industry has never been greater.
“RTE technology is allowing everyone to be creators, empowering more people to build new communities while forging new networks of connections from work to school to anywhere at any time,” said Agora’s Co-founder and CEO, Tony Zhao. “As technologies continue to advance, we’ve seen tremendous business opportunities for developers and creators across every industry and in every part of the world. By promoting Stanley, Tony and Virginia, and bringing Roger on board, we are in a better position to move to the next level as we continue to expand our platform globally.”
Wei is responsible for overall strategic planning, investments and global expansion. He is also tasked with overseeing the day-to-day administrative and operational functions of the business. He reports to Zhao.
As CRO, Wang, an Agora co-founder and leader of the Agora’s Emerging Technology & Markets division, will now lead sales strategy, management and team development. He will also own the go-to-market (GTM) strategy, identify and close key accounts, while ensuring customer retention. He reports to CSO Wei.
“As one of Agora’s co-founders, Tony has been an integral part of our team from the beginning,” said Wei. “In his new role, he will lead and oversee everything relating to our revenue and growth, while building and growing the ecosystem that supports all net and new sales. We’re eager and excited to see all that he will achieve in his new position.”
In the CXO role, Liu, who transitions from her position as Agora’s Senior Vice President of Marketing & Ecosystems, will drive Agora’s product-led growth (PLG) strategy, aligning Agora’s product strategy to make it extremely easy and delightful for developers to build high-quality real-time applications. She will report to CEO Zhao.
“Virginia has been driving Agora’s growth since she arrived,” said Zhao. “In her new role, she will not only further enhance positive developer experiences, but also represent the voice of the developer at the executive management team level and ensure that any and all efforts created toward developers are coordinated and connected to our core strategy and objectives.”
In his role as Chief Security Officer, Hale will work with executive management to navigate compliance and security, and determine risk management and security best practices for the organization. He will also serve as the process owner of all assurance activities related to the availability, integrity and confidentiality of customer, business partner, employee and business information in compliance with Agora's information security and business compliance policies.
“"Security and compliance have never been more critical than they are today,” said Zhao. “In his position at Agora, Roger will further develop and maintain a company-wide information security management program. With an impressive track record and decades of experience and expertise, we’re excited to welcome him to the team.”
For more information about Agora, visit https://www.agora.io/
Agora’s mission is to make real-time engagement ubiquitous, allowing everyone to interact with anyone, in any app, anytime and anywhere. Agora’s cloud platform provides developers with simple, flexible and powerful application programming interfaces, or APIs, to embed real-time video and voice engagement experiences into their applications.
