Nicholas Chia

Nicholas Chia is the Chief Executive Officer of Aolani, where he leads the company’s strategy, operations, platform delivery, and regional expansion. He oversees the development of Aolani’s AI infrastructure platform, including data centre capacity, GPU cluster deployment, strategic technology partnerships, institutional fundraising, and operational execution across Southeast Asia.

Nicholas brings more than 20 years of experience spanning investment banking, capital markets, digital infrastructure, and platform building. He began his career in capital markets with Citi, before holding senior leadership positions at Standard Chartered, OCBC Bank, and CLSA, where he advised companies across Asia on equity capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, fundraising, and strategic transactions.

He subsequently transitioned into digital infrastructure investing and platform development, serving in leadership and investment roles at A3 Capital, Maximin Group, Verdnex Data Centers, Racks Central, and EMA Global. Across these roles, he has led investments, fund formation, corporate finance, data centre platform development, governance, and operational transformation, while helping build and scale multiple digital infrastructure businesses from inception through to successful outcomes.

At Aolani, Nicholas combines institutional capital markets expertise with hands-on operating experience, working closely with leading technology partners, customers, financial institutions, and investors to build and scale next-generation AI infrastructure platforms across the region.

Nicholas has served on the boards of several private companies across the real estate, healthcare, and digital infrastructure sectors.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Business from Queen Mary University of London and is a graduate of the Program for Leadership Development (PLD 29) at Harvard Business School.