Appier, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, today announced the appointments of Dr. Ming-yu “Robert” Chen and Chao-chi Chang to the management team, strengthening the company’s product innovation and R&D capabilities. The addition of the two engineering leaders will drive the next phase of Appier's growth, strengthening its market leadership in AI and digital marketing.

The influence of AI on decision-making has been widely recognized by everyone. AI can help enterprises to a greater extent in coping with future uncertainties or predicting the potential behaviors of users. Looking to the future, Gartner expects generative AI to account for 10 percent of all data produced by 2025. Generative AI will lead a new wave of productivity revolution and help enterprises scale their digital influence by doubling down on marketing content production, including text, dialogue, images, audio, video, etc. 

In response to the market demand, Appier looks to hiring talent to strengthen its core competencies in AI and this includes recruiting experienced engineering veterans to empower the company’s product innovation to lead the next wave of AI accelerations and develop more diversified application scenarios and help customers achieve sustainable business growth.

Dr. Ming-yu “Robert” Chen, Vice President of Engineering, has more than 20 years of experience driving technology strategy, leading large-scale organizations, building scalable platforms for global deployment, and conducting state-of-the-art AI technology research. In his new role at Appier, he will focus on leading the product development and technology of the entire CrossX product line, charting the R&D direction for Appier’s ads products and formulating strategies for high-value customer acquisitions and retargeting platforms, essentially leading the team to use advanced AI and Machine Learning technologies to build the most comprehensive ads solution and efficiently optimize the ROI for Appier’s customers. 

Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and BS degree in Computer Science and Information Engineering from National Taiwan University. He was recognized as one of IBM’s Emerging Leaders in Multimedia during his Ph.D. studies.

Dr. Chen joins Appier most recently from Compass, the real estate technology brokerage firm. At Compass, Dr. Chen built the first modern enterprise real estate end-to-end platform for agents and clients and was responsible for a global engineering team comprising over 300 engineers and scientists overseeing AI/ML, video, digital ads, marketing tech, and platform brokerage services. Before Compass, Dr. Chen served as a Senior Director at Zillow Group and a Principal Applied Science Manager at Microsoft. He built the industry’s first cloud-based housing valuation system in Zillow and a large-scale news recommendation system in Microsoft, improving the overall engagement of news services and users’ personalized experience through machine learning technology.

Chao-chi Chang, Senior Director of Engineering, has extensive experience in the software industry and has accumulated practical experience in different areas such as team management, development process optimization, product R&D, and product management. In his new role at Appier, he will lead the AIXON AI Prediction Platform engineering team and oversee integration projects to ensure seamless product synergies. He will also work closely with the Customer Success Management and Technical Support teams to optimize current workflows and bring more value to customers. 

Chao-Chi holds an MS degree in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and an MS degree in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT Media Lab. He received his BS degree in Computer Science and Information Engineering from National Taiwan University.

Chao-chi’s experience includes roles in local and multinational leading companies such as Trend Micro, France Telecom, and Groundhog Technologies. He handled several major R&D projects in these organizations, including an automatic detection system of potential problems in multilingual products, a user context-aware notification system, and mobile network positioning technology (Geolocation). Chao-chi also comes with significant experience in the startup field. He has led and contributed to the establishment and growth of several startups and online services, including Flirq, a dating platform; Call Saver, an app to help customers save time while trying to reach a live rep for customer service; Here2Shop, a community e-commerce platform; Zuvio, a real time classroom interaction platform for colleges; and Darwin Ventures, where he was responsible for the sourcing and evaluation of software and internet startups.

"Building a strong engineering team with solid R&D capabilities is an essential driver of the growth of AI SaaS companies. I am delighted to have Robert and Chao-chi, two outstanding engineering leaders, as part of our team. By leveraging their extensive industry and subject-matter experience, I believe that Appier's product lines can meet the needs of an even more diversified group of brands, and match the increasingly fast iterations of AI applications and complex machine learning models.” said Dr. Chih-han Yu, CEO and Co-founder of Appier. “I believe that under Robert and Chao-chi’s leadership, we can enable development process optimization and maximize our engineering manpower to fulfill different software development and technical needs and empower our customers to strengthen their digital impact amidst fierce market competition.”

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About Appier

Appier (TSE: 4180) is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that uses artificial intelligence to power business decision-making. Founded in 2012 with a vision of democratizing AI, Appier now has 17 offices across APAC, Europe and US, and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.