As we mark a decade of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list, here’s a look at some of its most successful alumni to date.
LISA
Age: 28, Class of 2019
Singer/Actress
South Korea
Thai rapper and singer Lalisa Manobal, better known as Lisa of Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink, has been charting her own path. Her latest turn is in the third season of hit HBO series The White Lotus in which she plays the role of Mook, who works at a Koh Samui resort. In April, she appeared at the Coachella music festival to perform songs from her debut studio album Alter Ego, released in February. The album’s lead single “Rockstar,” which she first released last year, climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Global ranking of top songs outside the U.S. That followed a solo deal with Sony Music Entertainment’s RCA Records and the launch of her own management label Lloud. In 2023, her track “Money” set a Guinness World Record as the first song by a K-pop solo artist to reach a billion streams on Spotify. —Catherine Wang
LUCY LIU
Age: 34, Class of 2017
Cofounder and President, Airwallex
Australia
Over the past decade, former banker Lucy Liu and her cofounders have transformed Australian cross-border payments platform Airwallex into a global fintech player with over $600 million in sales and $130 billion in annualized processing volume. After establishing its presence in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, the Singapore-headquartered company recently entered Latin America’s two largest economies, securing a license to operate in Brazil and finalizing its purchase of Mexican payments-service provider MexPago. An extended series E round in 2022, which brought its funding total to over $900 million, valued Airwallex at $5.6 billion. The company says its next goal is getting IPO-ready by 2026. —C. W.
HARSHIL MATHUR
Age: 34, Class of 2021
Cofounder and CEO, Razorpay
India
A decade ago, Razorpay cofounder and CEO Harshil Mathur found a niche in India’s online payments market aimed at startups. Today the Bangalore-based company, which Mathur runs with cofounder and managing director Shashank Kumar, operates one of India’s largest payment gateways by revenue and transaction volume and counts 86 of the country’s top 100 unicorns by valuation (or could say 86 of the country’s 100 most valuable unicorns) among its customers. Sales in the year ended March 2024 climbed nearly 10% to 25 billion rupees ($300 million) as total payment volume hit 15 billion rupees, up from 12.6 billion rupees a year earlier. The pair are pressing ahead with a massive scale-up, both at home and across Southeast Asia. —Anuradha Raghunathan
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RYO OGAWA
Age: 28, Class of 2019
CEO, Timee
Japan
Timee made headlines last July when the on-demand job platform, cofounded by Ryo Ogawa, listed in Japan at a market valuation of ¥140 billion ($972 million), making it one of the country’s largest public offerings in recent years. With Japanese companies increasingly looking for help securing staff in a tight labor market, the company’s net profit jumped 55% to ¥2.8 billion on a nearly 67% increase in revenue to ¥27 billion in its latest financial year ended in October. Ogawa and his former business partner, Yoshiki Fuke, who’s since left the company, launched Timee (then called Taimee) in 2017 to match gig workers with restaurants and stores. It now has almost 11 million part-timers and more than 340,000 businesses registered on its app, which also caters to the logistics, elderly care and hospitality sectors, among others. Workers use the platform for free, while businesses pay the freelancer’s wages through Timee, plus a 30% commission on every paycheck and a ¥200 transaction fee. Ogawa’s 25% stake is now worth $280 million. —James Simms
MELANIE PERKINS
Age: 38, Class of 2016
Cofounder and CEO, Canva
Australia
In Canva’s early days, Melanie Perkins learned to kitesurf to be able to hang with a group of venture capitalists in Hawaii. She’s since raised close to $600 million from investors and built a global design software giant with more than $3 billion in annualized sales and over 230 million monthly active users. After a secondary share sale in October, the Sydney-headquartered company was valued at $32 billion, down 20% from its peak valuation of $40 billion achieved in 2021. Perkins and her husband Cliff Obrecht, Canva’s chief operating officer, share a fortune of $11.5 billion. Its first AI graphic design tools, capable of generating text and images, created an industry buzz when released in 2023; the company’s most recent software launch includes Canva Sheets, which can turn data into interactive graphics with a click. —C. W.
JAMES PRANANTO
Age: 36, Class of 2019
Cofounder and chairman, Kopi Kenangan
Indonesia
James Prananto is giving Kopi Kenangan, the Jakarta-based coffee chain he cofounded in 2017, a jolt. By year-end he plans to open ten stores in India and eight in Australia to expand its footprint in the region, following moves into the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore since 2022. The goal, he says, is to triple the total number of outlets to 3,000 by 2028 from 1,000 today. Kopi Kenangan, known for its affordable coffee and local Indonesian flavors, such as its signature palm-sugar latte, became a unicorn in 2021 after a series C funding round that valued the company at more than $1 billion. It’s also ventured into food, such as its Cerita Roti baked goods and Chigo fried chicken. —Ardian Wibisono
Check out our full Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2025 list here.
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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