Roc Tian

Runs Appen China, now nearly half of Appen's revenue (US$102.9M in FY2025, +75%) and its profit engine. Appen describes it as the largest AI data company in China.

Background

PhD in computer software. He was a senior partner at IBM GBS (China, HK, Taiwan) and helped grow IBM's China delivery centre from 4,000 to 10,000+ people. Before that he was business quality director for HP's China delivery centre, and earlier founder and CTO of a 100+ person tech startup. He joined Appen in Aug 2019.

What they run now

Strategy, sales, delivery, operations and government relations for China, Japan and Korea. He is shifting China from autonomous-driving annotation to generative-AI, domain-expert and multimodal data, and supporting Chinese tech firms' international expansion.

Career

2019 – presentSVP & GM China (later + Japan, Korea), Appen
2019Senior partner, IBM GBS
—Founder & CTO, Tech start-up (unnamed)
—Business quality director, HP (China global delivery centre)
—, PhD Computer Software; MA Computer Applications

Connections

Ryan Kolln — CEO

Why it matters here

Little direct relevance to a European creative-data specialist. He matters as a market signal: Chinese labs are a large and growing buyer of expert and multimodal data.

How to reach

Not a practical contact for Julian at this stage.

What we could not establish

Universities for his degrees.
Public statements.

Background

What they run now

Career

Connections

Sources

Ryan Kolln

Justin Miles

Kim Stagg

Brian Jenkins

Francisco Rivera