Board of Directors

James Yahui Zhou, Chairman of the Board and CEO.
James Yahui Zhou has served as our chairman and chief executive officer since July 2016. Mr. Zhou is the controlling shareholder of Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd. (300418:CH), a global internet company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and had served as a director from April 2020 to May 2021, the chairman of the board from March 2011 to April 2020, and an executive director and general manager from March 2008 to March 2011 in Kunlun. Prior to that, he served as general manager of Beijing JiNaiTe Internet Technology Co., Ltd. from March 2007 to March 2008. From November 2005 to March 2007, Mr. Zhou was an executive officer in charge of new business development at RenRen Inc. (which renamed to Moatable, Inc. in June 2023), a NYSE-listed company. From September 2000 to January 2004, Mr. Zhou was general manager of Beijing Huoshen Technology Co., Ltd. Mr. Zhou received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and his master’s degree in optical engineering from Tsinghua University in 1999 and 2006, respectively.

Lori Wheeler Naess has served as our independent director since July 2018. She has served as a director of the technical department of PricewaterhouseCoopers, a global auditing service provider, leading IFRS reviews for companies listed in Oslo from September 2012 to June 2015. Prior to that, Ms. Naess served as a senior advisor of the Section for Prospectuses and Financial Reporting of The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway, a Norwegian government agency responsible for the supervision of financial companies from January 2011 to September 2012. She served as an audit director and manager for U.S. GAAP and SEC Reporting at PricewaterhouseCoopers and its predecessor Coopers & Lybrand at various offices in the United States, Norway and Germany from September 1994 to January 2011. Ms. Naess has also served as a board member and the audit committee chair of Golar LNG Limited, a Nasdaq-listed liquefied natural gas shipping company since March 2016 and served on its Nasdaq-listed limited partner, Golar LNG Partners Limited, from March 2016 until April 2021. Ms Naess has also served as a board member and the audit committee chair of 2020 Bulkers Ltd, a shipping company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange since September 2024. Ms. Naess also served as a board member at Klaveness Combination Carriers ASA from January 2019 to April 2021, a shipping company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange in Norway. Ms. Naess is a U.S. Certified Public Accountant (inactive). She received her bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1994 and her master’s degree in accounting in 1994 from the University of Michigan.

Trond Riiber Knudsen has served as our independent director since July 2018. Mr. Knudsen has served as the founder and CEO of TRK Group AS, an Oslo-based investment and advisory firm since June 2015. He worked at McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm and served as a senior partner with responsibility for the company’s marketing and sales practice from August 1992 to June 2015. Mr. Knudsen received his sivilingeniør (equivalent of a Master of Science degree) in structural engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 1987 and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University in 1992.

James Jian Liu has served as our independent director since July 2019. Mr. Liu had over 20 years of experience with China’s high growth internet and technologies companies. Mr. Liu served as an executive director since January 2008 and chief operating officer from 2006 to 2004 of Moatable, Inc. (formerly RenRen Inc.), a NYSE-listed company. Prior to that, in September 2003, he founded UUME.com (which was later acquired by RenRen in May 2005), one of the earliest social networking service websites in China. Previously, from February 2002 to August 2003, Mr. Liu served as the founding product management director at Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT), a Nasdaq-listed network security solution provider. From July 2000 to January 2002, he served as a product manager at Siebel Systems Inc., a U.S. software company. Mr. Liu started his career as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group in China from September 1995 to August 1998. Mr. Liu earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1995 and later received his MBA degree from Stanford University in 2000.

Lin Song has served as our co-chief executive officer since August 2020 and as a member of our Board of Directors since October 2022. He has worked for our group beginning in 2002 in Oslo, Norway and served as our chief operating officer from March 2017 to August 2020. Mr. Song has an engineering background and has served in various roles inside our group, including project manager of one of our group’s earliest initiatives to enable full web browsing on mobile devices and as director of engineering delivery. Later on, he served as general manager of Opera’s subsidiary in China and assisted in the establishment of Opera’s R&D center in Beijing. Mr. Song also served as a director of Otello Corporation ASA (OSE: OTEC), a Norwegian internet company, from June 2020 until January 2025. Mr. Song obtained a bachelor’s degree in information systems from the University of International Business and Economics in 2004.

Xiaoling Qian has been a member of our Board of Directors since June 2021. Ms. Qian is an executive of Kunlun Tech. Co., Ltd. (300418:CH), a global internet company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Ms. Qian has taken a leading role in managing Kunlun’s investment in Opera and has worked with our other board members and the Opera management team since 2016. Ms. Qian obtained a bachelor’s degree in Japanese from Zhejiang University in 2010.

Tian Jin was a member of our Board of Directors from December 2019 until June 2021, rejoining our Board of Directors in October 2022. Mr. Jin held positions of the vice general manager and secretary of the board of Kunlun Tech Co., Ltd. (300418:CH), a global internet company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, from 2015 to 2018, the general manager since July 2020 to May 2021, and has been serving as a director since November 2018 and chairman of the board since July 2020. Prior to that, Mr. Jin had six years of experience in the banking industry. He held the positions of vice president of the customer development department of Nanjing Bank Beijing branch from 2010 to 2011 and vice president of the bank’s Beichuan sub-branch from 2011 to 2015, and he also served as a key account manager of Agricultural Bank of China Beijing branch from 2009 to 2010. Before that, Mr. Jin worked at Heyi Ceramics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., a high-end ceramics manufacturing company, where he served as the managing director and supervisor from 2000 to 2009. Mr. Jin received his bachelor’s degree in marketing management from Upper Iowa University in 2006.