Robert I. Chen

Founder, CEO and President

Bio

Bob is the founder of AEssense and also serves as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. He has a long history of building successful businesses in Silicon Valley. Prior to AEssense, he co-founded RAE Systems and AOT Corp., which were acquired by Honeywell and Hewlett-Packard respectively. Bob’s industry experience also includes various engineering and management positions at General Motors, General Electric, Tektronix, Fairchild Semiconductor and Hewlett-Packard Company. Bob has a BSEE from National Taiwan Cheng-Kung University, a MSEE from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology and Advanced Engineer Degree from Syracuse University. Bob was also a member of HBS OPM Class 18.

Jennifer Ong

Executive Vice President

Bio

Jennifer has responsibility for the daily operation of the company. She has over 25 years of experience in high-tech business and engineering management. Prior to joining AEssense, Jennifer was an executive staff member in the CEO’s office at RAE Systems, leading special and strategic programs. Prior to joining RAE Systems, she was a Principal at Pittiglio Rabin Todd and McGrath, now PricewaterhouseCoopers. Prior to that, she was Communication Systems Engineering Manager at TRW, now Northrup Grumman.

Hong Zhang

Vice president, Engineering

Biography

Hong’s expertise is building data platforms, cloud services and applications for the collection, processing, analysis, and visualization of big data. Previous to joining AEssense, Hong had more than ten years of engineering management at Open X and TeleNav Inc., and prior to that, honed her software engineering skills at Nuance Communications, SeeCommerce, and Schlumberger. Hong has a M.S. and B.S. in Computer Science and was a Ph.D candidate in Computer Science at the University of Houston.

Phil Gibson

Vice President of Marketing

Bio

Phil has 30 years of sales, marketing, and channel experience, and is known as the creator of the WEBENCH online design environment now owned by Texas Instruments. Previously, Phil held executive marketing positions at Infineon, TI, and National Semiconductor. With 8 patents in web technology, Phil is an expert in digital marketing and built his first web site in 1995. Phil holds an MBA from the University of Southern California and a BSEE from UC Davis.

ChriS Wrenn

Vice President of Americas Sales

Bio

Chris is leading our US sales. Previously, he was Sr. Director of Sales and Marketing for Environics USA, a provider of sophisticated gas & vapor detection solutions for the military, 1st responder, safety and homeland security markets. Chris was also a key member of the RAE Systems team, helping to grow RAE’s revenues from $1M/yr to nearly $100M/yr in the above mentioned markets. Chris has extensive experience teaching gas and vapor detection and has been a featured speaker at more than 100 international conferences. He has written numerous articles, papers and book chapters on gas detection in HazMat and industrial safety applications.

Dr. Huafang Zhou

Vice President of Technology & Chief Scientist,  AEssense Corporation

Biography

Huafang Zhou Ph.D, the Vice President of Technology and Chief Scientist at AEssense Corporation, based in Sunnyvale, California. A recognized expert in the sensing industry, his expertise in smart air/nutrient sensors and grow lighting provides a strong foundation for the design and development of indoor vertical farms, or plant factories. 

At AEssenseGrows, he directs sensor development and the plant science teams who have determined optimal plant factory growing conditions for 60+ plant varieties.  Dr. Zhou holds 30+ patents, authored 20+ scientific publications, and often presents at international conferences.

Wendy CHEN

Vice President, General manager, AEssense Greater China

Wendy has responsibility for the daily operation of the company's China regional Asia Pacific operations. Before joining AEssense, Wendy was Executive Deputy General Manager of Sales and Marketing at RAE Systems for China Business Operations. She also held marketing and other executive positions at RAE Systems ASIA. Wendy was an early member of the RAE Systems team who established its original operations in China and built up its market presence in Asia. Wendy graduated from the Senior Executive Program for China offered by Tsinghua University, CEIBS, and Harvard Business School.

Stephen B. HUANG

Chief Financial OFFICER

Stephen joined AEssense as our CFO in 2019. Stephen previously held CFO positions at both publicly-traded and private equity/venture-backed companies. His leadership experience in taking companies through growth opportunities serves him well at AEssense.  His chief initiatives are to drive key metrics for revenue growth, effective cash management, and profitability. Most recently, Stephen was the CFO of LumaSense Technologies, a global provider of high performance sensing systems, software and SaaS/cloud based data analytics solutions.  They were acquired by Advanced Energy. Prior to LumaSense, Stephen was the CFO of Agnity Global, Inventergy Global, Altair Nanotechnologies, and Penguin Computing. Stephen earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Accounting from San Francisco State University.