BookWorm's Founders
Ming S. Hsiao
Chief Executive Officer
Ming Hsiao, born in December 1985, is the founder and CEO of BookWorm Inc. He is currently a student at the USC Marshall School of Business and will graduate in Fall 2008 with a degree in marketing and finance. After college, he plans to start his own company where he can carefully apply all the skills that he has acquired over the years. He sadly remembers the time when he use to spend a ridiculous amount of money on books only to find himself broke by the end of the month. As a result, he aspires to be the solution to soaring textbook prices so that college students can have less of a financial burden. He has a great vision for the future of BookWorm and hopes to introduce a whole new level of online book retailing. In addition, Hsiao enjoys reading, running, golfing, and wrestling. He also loves playing the piano. Perhaps a few years down the road after Hsiao obtains his MBA, he plans to turn BookWorm into a publicly traded company.
David W. Lee
Chief Operations Officer
Born in Anaheim, California, David W. Lee wanted to be a doctor since he was a child. He not only had a toy stethoscope during his childhood, but also pretended to do check-ups on his siblings and to apply bandages to their wounds. As a child, David also read many books. His older brother passed down all his books to him, so he had free access to many books. Every summer, he went to the library on a weekly basis and participated in children’s reading programs. While other kids read books and participated in the library’s programs because they were forced by their parents, David read for the purpose of gaining knowledge and becoming smarter. Because he started reading at an early age, David valued the knowledge that one gains from books. Throughout high school, he gained a strong interest and aptitude for the sciences, particularly biology.
As a result of his interest in the life sciences, David entered the University of Southern California as a B.S. candidate in Biological Sciences. After spending three years in college, he realized that college students need to buy new textbooks every four months. He also realized from personal experience that buying new textbooks every few months is both expensive and time-consuming. During a meeting with his classmates from his business writing course at USC, he realized that, through Bookworm, he could help relieve the frustration that many students like himself felt because of textbooks.
David J. Nelson
Chief Financial Officer
David Nelson will be graduating from USC in May 2009 with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Accounting. He now handles all accounting and financial advisement for BookWorm, Inc. Before landing in the field of Public Accounting, he explored the finance, marketing, sales and human relations fields while working for several businesses including AG Edwards and Hewitt Associates. This provided a breadth of experience unparalleled by his contemporaries.
When Bookworm was founded, Nelson was inspired to leave the world of public accounting to pursue this newfound opportunity. As CFO, David has implemented a cost-effective, accurate accounting and budgeting system unmatched by Bookworm’s competitors. It is because of the sophistication of these systems that Bookworm is consistently able to project the value of our investment in each textbook we carry with unheard of accuracy. Nelson is proud to be a part of the Bookworm team and predicts a prosperous future for the company.
Joyce Lacey
Chief Information Officer
Joyce Lacey will graduate from USC in May 2008 with a BS in Computer Science. While in school, she worked for Premier Wireless Inc. as a research assistant on an automobile recognition system. She also interned at the Capital Group Companies as a business systems analyst on their CRD team for eight months. She worked on various projects that revamped their compliance systems, and was the team lead on a project updating their compliance limits database. After finishing her internship, the Capital Group offered Joyce a full time position as a programmer analyst in their Software Engineering program. When a few of her friends from her USC writing course developed an idea for a start-up company, she was thrilled to join them in this endeavor. Because of her background in computer science, she has become the CIO of BookWorm. Currently she is overseeing the design of the website and their technology team.
In her spare time she enjoys traveling and her latest trip was to Peru and Machu Picchu. She has also been to Russia, Kenya, Tanzania, Thailand, Cambodia, Guatemala and Ireland to name a few. Another passion of hers is animals. She currently has a cat named Harvey and a bulldog named Major Major each of whom was named for her favorite movie and book.