|
Dr. Lu to lead and expand the Institute's engagement efforts in Asia
LOS ANGELES and SINGAPORE, Jan. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Global think tank the Milken Institute today announced the appointment of Dr. Kevin Lu as Chair of Asia. Dr. Lu brings decades of experience in the investment and public policy world, including his current role as Partner, Chairman of Asia, and member of the Global Executive Board at Partners Group, as well as his past role in leading the World Bank Group's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency as Director and Chief Financial Officer. Dr. Lu also serves as a Lecturer of Management at Yale School of Management and an Adjunct Professor of Finance at Columbia Business School, teaching graduate courses on private equity and society.
Robin Hu will be become Chairman Emeritus after serving his two-year tenure as Chair of Asia. Hu will continue as a member of the Board of Directors at the Milken Institute Asia Center and will serve in a senior advisory capacity.
Dr. Lu has been involved with Milken Institute's Asia headquarters since its inception, supporting the Institute's programmatic efforts in Asia and around the world. Now taking over as Chair of Asia, Dr. Lu will continue to provide strategic counsel to the Institute's leadership and collaborate with its Asia headquarters to drive the next era of impact, growth and expansion in the region.
"Over the years, the Milken Institute has benefited tremendously from Kevin's expertise and guidance in his capacity as Senior Fellow, and we are lucky to have him as our Chair of Asia. I'm extremely grateful to Robin for his two-year service and leadership as Chairman, which have been so valuable to the Institute and to me as the Executive Vice President of International," said Laura Deal Lacey, Executive Vice President of International at the Milken Institute. "I am excited to continue our partnership with Kevin in his new capacity. With his unparalleled depth and diversity of experience, as well as his extensive connections, I am confident that he will lead our Asia practice to new heights as we continue to grow from strength to strength."
Partners Group has been a long-time collaborator of the Milken Institute. In 2021, the two organizations jointly launched a high-impact and immersive internship program that offers wide exposure and hands-on experience in finance and investment management to undergraduate and graduate students in Singapore. The internship program is slated to welcome its sixth cohort of interns in the summer of 2026.
"In the past decades that I have been with the Milken Institute, it has undertaken substantial growth, bringing its flagship convenings to key markets around the world, from Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong (SAR), to London, Abu Dhabi, Mexico, Sao Paolo, and more," said Dr. Kevin Lu, Asia Chair, Milken Institute. "I am honored and humbled to be appointed as the Milken Institute's Chair of Asia, and I look forward to working with the Milken Institute leadership team in the United States and Asia team in Singapore to forge a path of success in the new global landscape."
About the Milken Institute
The Milken Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank focused on accelerating measurable progress on the path to a meaningful life. With a focus on financial, physical, mental and environmental health, we bring together the best ideas and innovative resourcing to develop blueprints for tackling some of our most critical global issues through the lens of what's pressing now and what's coming next. For more information, visit www.milkeninstitute.org.
Dr. Lu to lead and expand the Institute's engagement efforts in Asia
LOS ANGELES and SINGAPORE, Jan. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Global think tank the Milken Institute today announced the appointment of Dr. Kevin Lu as Chair of Asia. Dr. Lu brings decades of experience in the investment and public policy world, including his current role as Partner, Chairman of Asia, and member of the Global Executive Board at Partners Group, as well as his past role in leading the World Bank Group's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency as Director and Chief Financial Officer. Dr. Lu also serves as a Lecturer of Management at Yale School of Management and an Adjunct Professor of Finance at Columbia Business School, teaching graduate courses on private equity and society.
Robin Hu will be become Chairman Emeritus after serving his two-year tenure as Chair of Asia. Hu will continue as a member of the Board of Directors at the Milken Institute Asia Center and will serve in a senior advisory capacity.
Dr. Lu has been involved with Milken Institute's Asia headquarters since its inception, supporting the Institute's programmatic efforts in Asia and around the world. Now taking over as Chair of Asia, Dr. Lu will continue to provide strategic counsel to the Institute's leadership and collaborate with its Asia headquarters to drive the next era of impact, growth and expansion in the region.
"Over the years, the Milken Institute has benefited tremendously from Kevin's expertise and guidance in his capacity as Senior Fellow, and we are lucky to have him as our Chair of Asia. I'm extremely grateful to Robin for his two-year service and leadership as Chairman, which have been so valuable to the Institute and to me as the Executive Vice President of International," said Laura Deal Lacey, Executive Vice President of International at the Milken Institute. "I am excited to continue our partnership with Kevin in his new capacity. With his unparalleled depth and diversity of experience, as well as his extensive connections, I am confident that he will lead our Asia practice to new heights as we continue to grow from strength to strength."
Partners Group has been a long-time collaborator of the Milken Institute. In 2021, the two organizations jointly launched a high-impact and immersive internship program that offers wide exposure and hands-on experience in finance and investment management to undergraduate and graduate students in Singapore. The internship program is slated to welcome its sixth cohort of interns in the summer of 2026.
"In the past decades that I have been with the Milken Institute, it has undertaken substantial growth, bringing its flagship convenings to key markets around the world, from Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong (SAR), to London, Abu Dhabi, Mexico, Sao Paolo, and more," said Dr. Kevin Lu, Asia Chair, Milken Institute. "I am honored and humbled to be appointed as the Milken Institute's Chair of Asia, and I look forward to working with the Milken Institute leadership team in the United States and Asia team in Singapore to forge a path of success in the new global landscape."
About the Milken Institute
The Milken Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank focused on accelerating measurable progress on the path to a meaningful life. With a focus on financial, physical, mental and environmental health, we bring together the best ideas and innovative resourcing to develop blueprints for tackling some of our most critical global issues through the lens of what's pressing now and what's coming next. For more information, visit www.milkeninstitute.org.
** The press release content is from PR Newswire. Bastille Post is not involved in its creation. **
Milken Institute Announces Dr. Kevin Lu As New Asia Chair
HONG KONG, April 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- RWA.LTD has officially joined as a sponsor of the Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2026, marking a significant step in strengthening its brand visibility and expanding its market presence following its successful debut in September 2025. It will also partner with Fufuture to host a side event focused on practical RWA applications, It will also partner with Fufuture to host a side event focused on practical RWA applications, scheduled for April 21 at 16:00 (GMT+8).
Hong Kong Web3 Festival: A Premier Industry Platform
The Hong Kong Web3 Festival is widely recognized as one of Asia's most influential Web3 gatherings, bringing together global industry leaders, institutional investors, developers, and regulators. The festival has previously featured a distinguished lineup of globally recognized participants, including:
- Vitalik Buterin, Co-founder of the Ethereum Foundation
- CZ Changpeng Zhao, Founder of Binance
- Yat Siu, Co-Founder and Chairman of Animoca Brands
This year, the main stage agenda highlights "RWA: The Ultimate Q&A", signaling a decisive industry shift toward real-world asset tokenization as a core narrative. The theme reflects growing convergence between traditional industries and Web3 infrastructure, as well as increasing regulatory and institutional attention on RWA as a scalable adoption pathway, which aligns directly with RWA.LTD's core positioning.
Pioneering a RWA E-Commerce Pathway
Participating in and sponsoring the Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2026 has strategic significance for RWA.LTD to raise awareness of non-financial RWA projects. While many platforms focus on financialized RWA tokenization, RWA.LTD has taken a differentiated approach by leading the development of RWA e-commerce cases. By providing an end-to-end service for Web2 merchants, the platform enables traditional Web2 businesses to seamlessly integrate with Web3 through lightweight consumer goods tokens, forming what it defines as a "liquid brand ecosystem."
The concept of non-financial RWA tokens was first introduced in Hong Kong by RWA.LTD's CEO and founder, Tony FU, in late 2024, when building RWA.LTD, a platform specifically for consumer goods tokenization. RWA.LTD was launched in beta in September 2025, followed by a full upgrade and official launch in March 2026.
To date, multiple projects have been launched on the platform, including:
- TOP100 Utility Token, representing delivery rights to media services provided by a Hong Kong-listed company
- GCT Token, representing delivery rights to roasted-on-demand coffee bean goods
- DIMD Token, representing delivery rights to jewelry goods
Tony FU further commented: "As a non-conventional Web3 platform, RWA.LTD is deeply rooted in the Web2 consumer brand ecosystems, focusing on real usage rather than financial constructs. With RWA as this year's central theme, we see a clear mandate to actively contribute and help shape a diverse and broader narrative of RWA. RWA is destined to move beyond financialization into real consumer scenarios. By advancing RWA e-commerce models, we aim to expand adoption, reshape market perception, and unlock its true role as a bridge between real-world commerce and Web3."
Reshaping Brand–Consumer Interaction
Consumer goods tokenization establishes a dual-sided value model between issuers and consumers.
For issuers (Brand merchants):
- Upfront cash flow: Sale of tokenized vouchers enables early cash flow generation.
- Operational flexibility: Redemption conditions, cycles, and per-account limits are fully configurable.
- Liquid brand ecosystem: Brand tokens become a liquid symbol of membership within the brand ecosystem. Through special engagement with token holders—which would not be possible without blockchain technology, brands can interact with consumers in a fresh and innovative way like airdrops to extend user attention span. Token circulation further ensures a stable and sustainable community—when one exits, others step in.
For consumers:
- Price advantage: Brands can provide vouchers at preferential pricing.
- Low-pressure stockpiling: Traditional vouchers lack a standardized, fungible, and liquid marketplace, so consumers usually buy only for personal use. The secondhand market built in RWA.LTD can provide them with an alternative.
- "Freshness" of consumer stockpiling: Consumers may hold tokens long term and redeem them for specific products or services when needed, avoiding the obsolescence and stagnation typically associated with traditional stockpiling.
Ongoing Flagship Project — WinPoint Mall for E-Commerce and Web3 Service Providers
CEO Tony FU also unveiled the ongoing flagship project on RWA.LTD: WinPoint Mall as a sub-platform of RWA.LTD will act as a next-generation client management tool powered by its platform token, RWA COIN (RWA), mainly for e-commerce and Web3 service providers. The solution enables service providers to tokenize customizable service entitlements represented by RWA, which can then be distributed to their clients through various mechanisms. RWA.LTD has already reached consensus with multiple Tier 1 service providers and is actively advancing the implementation of these partnerships.
Traditional client management models—such as incentivized reviews and paid traffic acquisition—have long suffered from structural inefficiencies: outdated formats, non-transferable, high costs, and one-off traffic. Moreover, control over client relationships often remains fragmented or third-party-dependent, constraining merchants' ability to build sustainable and manageable customer ecosystems.
By contrast, the RWA-driven traffic model introduces a liquid, manageable, and merchant-owned client layer. Both new and existing customers can be activated and retained, enabling continuous engagement rather than single-use interactions. This allows service providers to implement granular, lifecycle-based traffic management while maintaining full autonomy over their client base.
In addition, e-commerce and Web3 service providers retain strategic flexibility: they may issue independent brand tokens or integrate into a shared, multi-brand liquidity network. This decision can be tailored based on different marketing objectives and cost considerations.
"The key innovation lies in the flexibility of consumer goods tokens—they can be applied to a single brand or extended across multi-brand scenarios, enabling a diverse ecosystem while significantly lowering the barrier for merchants to adopt consumer goods tokens and start their Web3 journey," said Tony Fu.
Regulatory Positioning in Hong Kong
Benefiting from Hong Kong's advanced and well-defined legal framework, RWA.LTD focuses on consumer goods tokens that do not fall within the definition of "Virtual Asset" under Section 53ZRA of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (AMLO), because these tokens are neither payment tokens nor governance tokens. Even where certain characteristics may overlap, such tokens ultimately qualify as "Limited Purpose Digital Tokens" under Section 53ZR of the AMLO. As a result, RWA.LTD's platform does not fall within the scope of the Virtual Asset Trading Platform (VATP) licensing regime, enabling a more efficient and lightweight operational model for the platform, merchants, and consumers.
U.S. Market and Regulatory Validation
Notably, in November 2025, shortly after RWA.LTD's launch, a comparable project—Fuse Token ($ENERGY)—received a No-Action Letter from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This case strongly validates RWA.LTD's forward-looking market judgment, early strategic positioning, and first-mover advantage in the emerging non-financial RWA segment.
Growth Trajectory and Strategic Expansion
Since its launch, RWA.LTD has completed its angel financing round within five months at a valuation exceeding USD 14 million, securing more than USD 1.7 million in funding. The company is now entering a phase of rapid growth and accelerated expansion. Hong Kong serves as RWA.LTD's strategic home market, offering a highly engaged consumer market and a rapidly evolving Web3 ecosystem. These factors provide a strong foundation for brand building, business development, and ecosystem partnerships.
Sponsoring the Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2026 represents another milestone in RWA.LTD's strategy to amplify market awareness, reinforce its positioning, and expand its influence within the global Web3 landscape, after its successful debut and close of angel round financing.
** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **
RWA.LTD Sponsors Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2026 to Strengthen Brand Visibility and Market Presence
RWA.LTD Sponsors Hong Kong Web3 Festival 2026 to Strengthen Brand Visibility and Market Presence
