Hong Cai

Cai is responsible for leading, building and mentoring FreeWheel’s Beijing engineering team and partnering with leadership to drive innovation and strategies that further FreeWheel’s endeavours to help connect buyers and sellers across the TV ecosystem. He also collaborates across product, operations, revenue and additional disciplines to develop and deliver differentiated advertising products and media solutions and support FreeWheel’s clients during this critical time in the rapidly evolving media landscape.

A 23-year technology industry veteran, Cai has held global engineering leadership roles at both small startups and established corporations, with extensive experience in cloud computing and technical evaluation as well as people management and building collaborative partnerships.

He joined FreeWheel from Data Orient, Inc., an AI-driven big data analytics startup in Beijing, where he served as chief technology officer and chief scientist. Prior to Data Orient, Inc., Cai was at Datayes, a FinTech company in Shanghai, as chief technology officer and vice president of engineering and ZTE TX in the United States, as chief technology officer of cloud computing. He also spent nearly 15 years at IBM across three different organizations, including IBM’s research group in China, IBM’s software development center in China, and IBM’s headquarters in New York, where he worked with senior technical and business leaders to define technology trends for the company’s future.

Cai earned a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering and PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Tsinghua University, the number one ranked university in China. In addition, he has authored approximately 50 papers, filed tens of patents and co-authored a book titled “Services Computing.”