Tradition meets innovation

Sam has worked in the wine investment industry since 2012, including 9 years with the world’s largest specialist advisor, Cult Wines, with USD 360m assets under management. Here he founded the Singapore office, managed the business across Southeast Asia and was on the Investment Committee. During this time, he built up a large network of individuals with interests in various ‘passions assets’ such as wine, whisky, watches, art and cars. Sam has been featured in Robb Report, Forbes, MoneyFM, The Peak and CNA, and was previously a member of the British Chamber of Commerce’s Finance and Fintech Committee.

Lee co-founded and was previously CTO and Head of Product at Paidy, a card-less, real-time payment network in Japan. Paidy’s shareholders include Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Visa and Fidelity, and was acquired by PayPal in 2021 for USD 2.7bn. Lee also co-founded Wavecell, Asia’s leading cloud communication platform with customer such as Lazada, Viber and SAP, which was acquired by 8x8 Inc in 2019 for USD 125m. Today Lee is building an ecosystem of companies focused on tokenization of physical assets and infrastructure for organizations to run their operations on the blockchain.

With over two decades in technology, Lee has experience in support, operations, development and systems architecture. He was a member of the founding team of Wavecell, a Cloud Communications Company, acquired by 8x8 in 2019. Fuelled by his passion for blockchain and decentralisation, Lee is actively engaged in driving innovation by exploring and implementing cutting-edge solutions for diverse problems.

Jonathan leads Savea’s growth strategy, drawing on over a decade of experience across investment, venture building, and commercial leadership. Prior to joining Savea, he held senior roles at Armit Wines, one of the UK’s leading fine wine merchants, where he led the digital transformation of the business and oversaw key client relationships. His earlier career spans investment roles at multi-family offices and specialist UK tech funds, where he focused on sourcing and scaling early-stage companies across real estate, consumer, and technology sectors. With a background in finance, an MSc in Investment & Wealth Management from Imperial College, and deep insight into the intersection of alternative assets and digital innovation, Jonathan plays a key role in shaping Savea’s go-to-market and long-term strategy.

Since 2004, Luke has worked across industry, most recently in senior buying and broking positions at Cult Wines, Wine Invest and Justerini & Brooks. Prior to that in Operations LHK Wines and Retail Store Management at Jeroboams. The relationships Luke has with wineries and key suppliers is vital to Savea.

Victoria has worked in the wine industry since 2014 across retail, importer, and fine wine investment sectors, plus three years in premium spirits. Her focus throughout her career has been in logistics and stock control, particularly in bond movements and managing relationships with major bonded warehouses such as Octavian Wine Services and London City Bond, where total value of wines and spirits stored exceeds £4bn. She is currently completing her WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wine.

Kevin’s career is rooted in culture, spanning music, art and design, events and community. He worked at Universal Music, before founding Secret 7", a project that collaborated with musicians and artists including The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, The Chemical Brothers, Ai Weiwei, Anish Kapoor and Sir Paul Smith. He later co-founded Goodness, a creative agency who counted Sony, Sonos, Squarespace and WeTransfer among their clients.

Patrick worked at Cult Wines for 6 years as Chief Customer Experience Officer & CSR Lead. Prior to that, he was Managing Director at Duco Technologies, the global fintech provider of data control services. He has a further 30 years’ experience in the global derivatives post-trade and OTC cleared swap markets and held senior management positions at Barclays Capital, ICAP and a range of technology firms including SunGard, FFastFill, MarginClick and Rolfe & Nolan.

Elisha Aswani is an experienced Product and Growth Manager with a decade of expertise driving growth strategies, including five years focused on decentralized finance and Web3 products. With previous roles at Binance and Trust Wallet, she's passionate about bridging traditional finance with emerging blockchain technologies. Elisha brings her deep understanding of product innovation to accelerate the adoption of next-generation financial services.

With 12 years in IT, Chris excels in support, database management and development. Driven by crypto technology passion, he shapes technical engineering and development.

With a decade of experience as a UI developer specialising in front-end web technologies, Akira’s journey began as a designer at Paidy in Tokyo. His expertise adds finesse to our user interfaces, creating seamless experiences.

Oliver is an award winning multidisciplinary designer who blends strategic thinking with striking creativity to build iconic brands. Formerly at Pentagram, he’s collaborated with industry leaders like Google, Roland, and Rolling Loud. Today, he’s carving out new territory in the web3 space—partnering with next-gen blockchain start-ups to shape identities that stand out in a decentralised world