Jia hails from sunny Southern California and grew up traveling between Los Angeles and Beijing. After earning his undergrad in business administration from California State University in Los Angeles, Jia decided to reconnect with his ancestral roots and pursue an International MBA at Renmin University of China in Beijing. He's been an expat ever since!

Jia got his hands on a computer and a dial-up modem during the boom of the Dot-com era and fell in love with the internet, computer games and all things digital. Being exposed to technology at an early age taught Jia how to tinker and build things on his own. This and his entrepreneurial spirit eventually led him to become an early stage employee at App Annie, a previous client, which is how he found his way to InterWorks.

Jia has lived in the US, China, France and the UK. An avid traveler, he has backpacked extensively throughout Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. In his spare time, Jia can be found in a local CrossFit box or on a dive boat somewhere in Southeast Asia, scuba diving with mantas and whale sharks in search of the elusive Mola Mola (a.k.a. Sunfish; google it!). Jia loves all kinds of music but is especially fond of Frank Ocean and Drizzy Drake.