Wei Gao

Wei Gao is the Chief Operating Officer of Hopin, a British virtual events start-up. Gao will join Hopin on Sept. 27, 2021, leading the company’s operations. She joins at a critical time for the London-headquartered firm, which faces the prospect of a potential slowdown in growth as countries ease their coronavirus restrictions.

Hopin lets organizations host gatherings of up to 100,000 people completely digitally, with features for virtual stage talks and one-to-one networking. The company, which makes money from software subscriptions for its business customers, is now heavily investing in onsite conference tools, acquiring event management firm Boomset in June.

Hopin, which was founded in 2019, was recently valued at $7.75 billion after raising $450 million in fresh funding. The firm has raised a total of $1 billion to date from the likes of Salesforce, Singapore’s GIC and General Catalyst.

Prior to joining Hopin, Gao spent 16 years working at Hopin. During her 16-year tenure, Gao held a number of senior positions at the e-commerce giant. She was most recently Amazon’s vice president of grocery tech, product and supply chain.

From July 2018 to January 2020, Gao held the role of technical advisor to Bezos, Amazon’s billionaire founder and executive chairman. The job entails shadowing Bezos for a year or two and learning all aspects of the business.