Ping Fu | Markle
Ping Fu | Markle

Ping Fu

VP and Chief Strategy Officer, 3D Systems Corporation
Expert Advisor, Rework America

Honored as Inc. magazine’s 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year, Ping Fu describes herself as an artist and a scientist whose chosen expression is business. In 1997, she co-founded Geomagic, a 3D imaging software company, which was acquired by 3D Systems in February 2013. The 3D technologies they developed were created to fundamentally change the way products are designed and manufactured around the world. Used for everything from repairing vintage cars at Jay Leno’s garage to digitally recreating the Statue of Liberty, Geomagic software enables design and production of one-of-a-kind products and services at a cost less than that of mass production.

Before co-founding Geomagic, Fu was program manager of visualization at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, where she was part of the team that initiated and managed the NCSA Mosaic software project that led to Netscape and Internet Explorer. She has more than 20 years of software industry experience in database, networking, geometry processing and computer graphics.

Fu is actively involved in promoting entrepreneurship and women in mathematics and sciences. Since 2010, she has been serving on the NACIE (National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship) at the Department of Commerce and she is an active supporter of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. She is the author of the business book Bend, Not Break, and holder of five U.S. and international patents.

Fu has received numerous awards for her leadership as an entrepreneur, including the Outstanding American by Choice award from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Carolinas, the Women’s Leadership Exchange Compass Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award by Business Leader magazine. In addition, she was a guest of First Lady Michelle Obama for the President’s 2010 State of Union address. She was also one of delegates from the U.S. Department of State at APEC 2011 and contributed to the September 16, 2011, San Francisco Declaration.

Fu received a Master of Science in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from University of California, San Diego.