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Bill Liao (born William Fu Wei Liao, 1967), co-founder of the social network service XING, is an Australian entrepreneur and philanthropist who has participated seven IPO's. He is also CEO of Finaxis AG, a privately held company in the financial services industry.
Liao is a social networking pioneer, [1] Author [2]and philanthropist. Among his philanthropic endeavors is his participation as an investor and volunteer in The Hunger Project in Uganda, New York and Mexico [3].
Liao is presently focused on launching a global citizenship initiative entitled The Declaration of Earth Citizenship [4].
Liao has also been appointed as a special diplomatic envoy for St Kitts and Nevis for sustainable development and the environment. Liao has contributed to the St Kitts and Nevis recovery fund for the sugar cane industry there. [5]
Liao is also a regular attendee at the TED conferences [6] and also the World Economic Forum New Champions conference[7].
Liao was also the Director of Operations (DOO) of telecommunications company Davnet, which achieved the fastest capital value growth in the history of the Australian Stock exchange [8] and which aggregated Internet access in the riser space [9] of office buildings. Davnet was acquired by Japanese telecommunications carrier Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) in 1996.
Liao left Davnet after the acquisition, turning his attention to other IT endeavors. In September 2003 Lars Hinrichs and Liao co-founded xing.com (XING), formerly called openBC or Open Business Club, a social networking platform for professionals. In December 2006, XING was one of the first Web 2.0 companies to go public and has grown to become one of the world’s leading business-to-business social networking portals [10]. Bill Liao remains a consultant to XING.
In 2007, Liao founded neo.org, a philanthropic venture and social networking site where people can make a personal commitment for the future of the earth. Neo is an international non-profit organization based in Switzerland and supported by a team of individuals from across the globe and was set up to provide a forum for people to make a personal commitment for the future of the earth in the form of a Declaration of Global Citizenship. Neo has also setup its first external initiative, WeForest.com [11]an organisation promoting reforestation as a way to combat global warming, poverty and water shortages.
Bill Liao is married with three children and divides his time between Switzerland and Germany.
