A Platform For A Better Japan

Thierry Porté is a Vice Chairman and Managing Director of J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC, a global private equity firm focused exclusively on financial services. He currently serves as director of the J.C. Flowers Asset Reconstruction Company, a Mumbai-based non-performing loan platform, and on the board of LMAX, a global financial technology company.  Over the course of his time with J.C. Flowers, he has led successful investments in OneLife Insurance (a cross-border life insurer in Luxembourg), Equita SIM (an investment bank in Italy), Fidea NV (a general insurer in Belgium), Eurovita SpA (a life insurance company in Italy), Acuon Corporation (a leasing and finance company in South Korea), Financière CEP (an insurance and credit broker in France), and Chi-X Asia Pacific, an alternative equity trading platform operating in Japan and Australia.

Mr. Porté holds a BA in Economics from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.  He is Chairman of the US-Japan Bridging Foundation. He is a Global Trustee of Asia Society. 

Preethi Prasad is a Partner in Kearney’s Leadership, Change and Organization Practice and leads the San Francisco office. Preethi has spent the last 20 years of her consulting career focused on large scale enterprise-wide operating model and organization restructuring efforts with an emphasis in cost reduction environments across various industries. She is leading Kearney’s Center for the New Era of Work that focuses on attracting and retaining talent in a post-COVID world.

Preethi holds a B.A. in International Studies from the John Hopkins University and an MBA from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon. While not working, Preethi loves spending time with her 10- and 7-year-old daughters.  She also enjoys being active outside and can often be found running, skiing, paddle boarding or walking her mini-goldendoodle.

Daniel Springer serves as Board Director of UiPath and DocuSign, where he was CEO until June 2022.  Springer has more than 25 years of executive leadership and experience in driving innovation and hyper growth across technology and, specifically, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses.

Prior to DocuSign, Springer served as Chairman and CEO at Responsys for ten years where he transformed and scaled the business from private start up to the leading cross-channel marketing automation platform globally as a publicly traded company.

Springer holds an MBA from Harvard University and an AB in Mathematics and Economics from Occidental College.

Springer has served as a board member at both public and private companies, including iCIMS, Ansira, YuMe, ELOAN (Banco Popular), Heighten, Persado, and eGroups (Yahoo!), as well as at nonprofits, including The Boys and Girls Club, YearUp, The Urban School, Shop.org, AdTech, The Randall Museum and The San Francisco Friends School.

Jesper Koll has been researching and investing in Japan since becoming a resident in 1986. Over the past two decades, Jesper has been consistently recognized as one of the top Japan strategists/economists, having worked as Chief Strategist and Head of Research for U.S. investment banks J.P. Morgan and Merrill Lynch. He currently serves as Expert Director for the Monex Group and the Japan Catalyst Fund (Japan’s 1st retail investor based corporate engagement/activist fund). His analysis and insights have earned him a position on several Japanese government and corporate advisory committees, including Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike’s Advisory Board. In 2022, he was appointed Global Ambassador for Tokyo’s Financial Center initiative. Jesper serves as Board Director of OIST, the Okinawa Institute for Science and Technology and is a Founder and Board Director of the Asia Society Japan and heads their Policy Committee. He is one of the few non-Japanese members of the Keizai Doyukai, the Japan Association of Corporate Executives; and serves on the board of several Japan-based start-ups. He has written three books in Japanese and, in 2021, created the acclaimed video/pod-cast series “Japan - Capitalism that works”.
Jesper is an economist, angel-investor, patron; and yes, a Japan Optimist.

Dave is the Head of Global Technology Investment Banking for Morgan Stanley. With over twenty-three years of investment banking experience, Dave has advised some of the most disruptive technology companies on their financial and strategic objectives.

Dave currently resides in Menlo Park, California with his wife and two children.

Naoko is an experienced investor and technology executive with a successful track record in building new business portfolios in Silicon Valley and Japan. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Niremia Collective, a wellbeing technology fund, and leads investment strategies and global community building. Additionally, she is the CEO of Amber Bridge Partners, a cross-border advisory firm.

Naoko held executive roles at technology companies in Silicon Valley, including Yahoo Inc., where she served as Vice President of Strategic Partnership Management, managing Yahoo's joint ventures and growing annual revenues from $16MM to $520MM. She also served as an Executive Advisor at Z Corporation, a blockchain-focused fund created by Softbank/Yahoo Japan and drove US investment for Mistletoe, a social impact fund founded by Mr. Taizo Son.

Naoko is a Non-executive Director at S4 Capital, a board member at CoinDesk Japan, and a senior advisor at Transformative Technology (NPO).

After completing an AB, MA at University of California, Berkeley and later a JD I began by assisting fortune 50 companies including American Express, Atlantic Richfield,Singer, Levi Strauss and Occidental Life with interest rate and foreign exchange forecasts. This led to international advisory relationships with Intel, AMD, Apple and other larger technology companies. After founding Berkeley International Capital we completed $2.1 billion of later stage investments in 280 companies with 100 IPOs and 100 acquisitions. Our Capital came from the UK, Australia and Japan. Our areas of investment were semiconductors, medical devices, and telecommunications. Billion dollar revenue successes include: Oracle, AOL, LSI logic, Atmel, Altera, Cirrus, Linear, Nellcor, Idexx, and others.

Shin is Managing Partner at Globis Capital Partners. Shin leads Globis’s digital and healthcare investments. Shin sits on the boards of his portfolio companies and takes a hands-on approach to support his portfolio companies. Ranked by Forbes Japan’s “Midas List Most Influential Venture Investor”1st in 2018, 7th in 2015, 10th in 2020.

His track record includes: IPO iStyle, Aucfan, Kayac, Pixta, Mercari, and Lancers; M&A Shimauma Print System (acquired by CCC), nanapi (acquired by KDDI), and Coubic (acquired by hey). His current portfolio includes Timers, Mirrativ, FastDOCTOR, Gracia, alu, MyDearest, want.jp, MyDearest, Alp, and minuites etc.

Chris is currently the Managing Director of the Nomura - SRI "NSIC" Innovation Center. The center is dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Silicon Valley’s disruptive technology innovation processes into corporate Japan.

Chris has been a design, innovation and product executive over the course of his career. He has worked across brands, innovation consulting, and venture communities for more than 25 years. A formative part of his work experience includes 14 years at design and innovation firm, IDEO. There Chris pioneered the human factors and user research disciplines in the design industry, and launched many‘first of their categories’ products for the clients.

As a thought leader on the future of sports and of medicine, Chris’speaking appearances and publications focus on the leading edge of those fields. Chris has also been a Venture Partner at Montage Ventures for 2 funds focused on disrupting retail, health & wellness, and consumer financial services.

Ari Horie is a Silicon Valley innovator, global speaker and thought leader in women’s leadership and entrepreneurship. In recent years, she has also become known for corporate innovation and leadership and speaking about the entrepreneurial mindset for executives.

She is the Founder & CEO of a leading accelerator, Women’s Startup Lab (WSLab), a uniquely designed program for women entrepreneurs with tech startups. Attracting top influencers in the valley, WSLab has been a driving force to change the face of venture and provides strong support to elevate women’s success in the tech world.  Her diverse background and rich talent in the valley led to forming a unique entrepreneurial development methodology, Hitology. Its an immersive and residential program, designed to prepare an individual to scale their success and impact as a change agent and to build their entrepreneurial mindset and skills that can set them apart as a transformational leader in this fast paced world.

Tom Kelley is a Partner at global design firm IDEO, where he has held leadership roles across the firm for three decades. During that time, he has managed a wide variety of functions such as marketing, business development, legal, and human resources. He is also the author of three successful business books including The Art of Innovation and the New York Times bestseller Creative Confidence.

As part of his IDEO role, Tom has traveled to Japan more than 70 times, working with creative teams and visionary clients. He is Chairman and Founder of IDEO’s Tokyo-based venture capital firm, D4V (Design for Ventures), promoting Japanese entrepreneurship and overseeing investments in dozens of promising Japanese tech start-ups.
Tom served as the first-ever Executive Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and held the same role at the University of Tokyo.

Although not, at first, obvious, Patti Lee-Hoffmann’s first four jobs prepared her to start a healthcare company and later an eyewear company.  While she was in college, she started her first business -- a small chain of organic produce stores.  Following college, she earned her CPA at Arthur Andersen, specializing in poultry and livestock.  Patti witnessed the birth of biotech by working for the Stanford professor who invented the pill.  Next, she was the treasurer of a company that acquired, turned-around and sold other companies engaged in real estate, manufacturing, fashion and publishing.  From these experiences, she learned to be surrounded by really, really smart people who knew everything she did not know and who generously taught her everything she needed to know.

Patti was the co-founder of Triage Consulting Group, a $500 million healthcare consulting firm.  According to the Great Place to Work Institute, Triage was one of the best medium companies to work for in America – for 20 years in a row.  Leadership Excellence Magazine named Triage to the list of companies with the best leadership development programs in America.  For its leadership in environmental sustainability, Triage was the first San Francisco company certified to be a Green Business.  Patti has been named Business Woman of the Year by the Women’s Initiative, a microfinance organization.

Patti is also the founder of Flutter Eyewear, a company that designs, manufactures and sells bespoke reading glasses.

She is the author of the book, In Great Company – Triage Consulting Group Unlocks the Secrets of Great Places to Work and contributed a chapter in Dear Chairwoman: Letters from Today’s Trailblazing Women.

She serves on the boards of organizations in the fields of education, micro-finance, women, children and music.   With her husband and two daughters, Patti lives in San Francisco, California.

Mr. Takano is CEO & Founder of Forbes JAPAN, linkties Holdings Co., Ltd., Founder and GP of D4V (Design for Ventures, a joint venture capital firm with IDEO), and CEO of MT Partners.  Prior to joining Forbes JAPAN in 2014, he was Managing Director and President of PIMCO Japan Ltd.  Before joining PIMCO in 2001, he was head of marketing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.  Mr. Takano’s prior experience also includes work at Daiwa Securities where he was head of the strategist team at Daiwa Institute of Research.
Mr. Takano serves on the board of a number of organizations, including GHV Accelerator, Endeavor Japan, Japan Venture Capital Association and International House of Japan . He holds an MS and BS in Science and Engineering from Waseda University.

Fiona Ma is California’s 34th State Treasurer. She was first elected on November 6, 2018, with more votes (7,825,587) than any other candidate for treasurer in the state's history and reelected on November 8, 2022. She is the first woman of color and the first woman Certified Public Accountant (CPA) elected to the position. The State Treasurer’s Office was created in the California Constitution in 1849. It provides financing for schools, roads, housing, recycling and waste management, hospitals, public facilities, and other crucial infrastructure projects that better the lives of residents. California is poised to become the world’s fourth-largest economy and Treasurer Ma is the state’s primary banker. Presently, her office processes more than $3 trillion in banking transactions. She provides transparency and oversight for the government’s investment portfolio and accounts, as well as for the state’s surplus funds. Treasurer Ma oversees an investment portfolio that currently averages over $200 billion—a significant portion of which is beneficially owned by more than 2,200 local governments in California. She serves as agent of sale for all State bonds and is trustee of billions of dollars of state indebtedness.

Kenji E. Kushida is Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Asia Program directing Japan programming, and he leads the Japan-Silicon Valley Innovation Initiative @ Carnegie (J-SV).  Previously a Research Scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University, he spearheaded the Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project (SV-NJ). He is also an International Research Fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS) and nonresident senior fellow at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research (TKFD). He holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.

Mitchell Baker co-founded the Mozilla Project to support the open, innovative web and ensure it continues offering opportunities for everyone. As CEO of Mozilla Corporation, Mitchell is focused on accelerating the growth levers for the core Firefox browser product and platform, while investing in innovative solutions to mitigate the biggest challenges facing the internet.

As Chairwoman of Mozilla for the last two decades, Mitchell has been responsible for organizing and motivating a massive, worldwide, collective of employees and volunteers who are building the internet as a global public resource, open and accessible to all. Mitchell is deeply engaged in developing product offerings that promote the mission of empowering individuals. She also guides the overall scope and direction of Mozilla’s mission. Mitchell has written the key documents that set out Mozilla's enduring mission and commitments — the Mozilla Public License in 1998, the Mozilla Manifesto in 2007 and the Mozilla Manifesto Addendum — also known as the Pledge for a Healthy Internet — in 2018.

Mitchell is a strong advocate for the open internet, open source, and the importance of connecting technology to its impact on individuals and society. She is highly regarded as one of the pioneers of the web and bringing the open internet to consumers. She was instrumental in Netscape’s decision in 1998 to release its source code to the public. This later led to the release of the Firefox browser and the creation of the Mozilla Foundation as a global technology force that spans software product development, educational initiatives, and participatory movements. After co-founding the Mozilla Project, Mitchell served as its general manager and CEO from 1999 until January 2008, when the organization’s rapid growth encouraged her to split her responsibilities and add a CEO.

Senior Executive Vice President and CTO of Sony Group Corporation, KITANO is President and CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., CEO of Sony Research Inc., President of The Systems Biology Institute, and Professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University. He is also a Founding President of the RoboCup Federation, President of International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) (2009-2011), and Member of the AI & Robotics Council (2016-2018), and Quantum Computing Council (2019-2020) of The World Economic Forum, Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) (2021-).

He received The Computers and Thought Award from the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in 1993, Prix Ars Electronica 2000, Design Award 2001 from Japan Inter-Design Forum, and Nature Award for Creative Mentoring in Science (Mid Carrier) in 2009, as well as being an invited artist for Biennale di Venezia 2000 and Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2001.

Ken Suzuki is CEO and co-founder of SmartNews, the global leader redefining information and news discovery. Ken co-founded SmartNews Inc. in 2012 with the mission of “delivering the world’s quality information to the people who need it.” He is responsible for the vision and strategy of SmartNews, which entered the U.S. market in 2014. Ken graduated from the Department of Physics at Keio University in 1998. He received a Ph.D in Complex Systems and Artificial Life from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at The University of Tokyo in 2009. He has also authored several published works such as “Namerakana Shakai to Sono Teki (The Smooth Society and Its Enemies)”.

Emre is General Partner at Globis Capital Partners, leading investments in IT startups targeting digital transformation of various industries. His portfolio includes GLM (acquired), Photosynth (TSE:4379), Sensyn Robotics, MFS, New Standard, Global Mobility Service, Shippio, CADDi, Matsuri Technologies, estie, and Leaner Technologies.

He teaches at Globis University Graduate School of Management (MBA).
Emre graduated from Harvard Business School (MBA) and Ohio State University.