Our Team

President

• Chimmy Shioya

  

  Chimmy Shioya President & Board Member
  Ms. Shioya is Director of Business Development at ZL Technologies, Inc. www.zlti.com, an email/file archiving & compliance software company based in San Jose, CA. She has over 20 years of experience in channel sales and marketing for high tech companies. Prior to ZL, she held sales and marketing management positions at companies ranging from start-ups to multinationals such as Reuters and Alcatel where she was responsible for developing the Japanese & Asia Pacific channels.

  In 2006, Ms. Shioya was appointed Associate Professor of Tohoku University US Office. She spearheaded its efforts for the University’s brand marketing and business-academia collaboration strategy during her 3 year tenure.She earned her MBA, magna cum laude from City University of New York and an undergraduate degree from Chuo University in Japan. She moved to North America to pursue her post undergraduate study. Since then, she has lived and worked primarily in New York and Silicon Valley.

Program Committee

• staff

  

  Akemi Koda Program Committee
  Ms. Koda is an experienced marketing and business development professional with 15 years of experience in IT, managed services and corporate travel consulting. Her areas of focus include advertising and promotion, awareness and demand generation, and market research. Fluent in English and Japanese, Akemi understands market trends and consumer preferences on both sides of the Pacific. She has held positions with NEC Corporation of America, United Airlines, BTI, Carlson Inc., and Varig Airlines – Tokyo. Akemi holds degrees in Marketing and Consumer Arts & Sciences. She is a principal at USAsiaVenturePartners.com, a trusted source of marketing outsourcing, business development consulting, fundraising for venture growth and US penetration for Japanese firms.

  

  Andrew Barnes Program Committee
  Andrew Barnes is the Founder of Asia Cleantech Partners. He has ten years of experience with corporate real estate and facilities, energy efficiency, and utility cost recovery programs. Prior to this he spent ten years in Tokyo and Hong Kong in the wireless and telecom sectors. He was the Director of Asia Pacific Business Development for 2Roam, a Panasonic Ventures funded company, and the Asia Pacific Director of Reseller Markets for Global One (JV of Deutsche Telecom, France Telecom, and Sprint) in the Hong Kong Regional HQ and Japan offices.

  Andrew holds a Masters of Commerce from Waseda University in Tokyo and a B.A. from Penn State University. He has worked at the United Nations and completed economics study at the Universitat zu Koln in Germany. He is an active member of the Advisory Council of Sustainable Silicon Valley and a “Go-to-Market” mentor for the Cleantech Open. Linkedin – Andrew Barnes (http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewphelpsbarnes)

  

  Andre Davis Program Manager

  

  Danny Ooi Program Manager

  

  Greg Tsutaoka Program Committee
  Mr. Tsutaoka has 20+ years experience leading numerous corporate and program leapfrogging initiatives and their execution for Internet, software, and technology-service provider companies.

  

  Matt Schlegel Program Committee
  Matt Schlegel founded Sakino Consulting (sakinoconsulting.com) to help companies in joint development relationships with Japanese partners bring new products to market. With over 20 years experience working with Japanese companies, Matt brings a unique combination of Japanese language capability, technical expertise and cultural understanding to the development teams, allowing for quick problem identification and resolution during the product development process. Matt has worked with companies to develop a number of different products including: smart phones, A/V equipment, CATV set top boxes, WLAN terminals, point-to-point microwave communication systems, digital video recorders, liquid crystal displays, and fan and fan motors for thermal management. Matt has worked with a number of different Japanese companies including Toshiba, Fujikura, Sanyo, Sharp, NEC, Seiko Epson, Optrex, Toshiba Matsushita Display, Nidec Sankyo and Panasonic. As a bridge for both technical and cultural issues, Matt enables teams to work together more effectively and deliver products more quickly. After graduating in engineering with a BS Engineering from Harvey Mudd College and an MSEE from UC San Diego, Matt received a Mombusho Scholarship and studied engineering at the University of Tokyo. He lived in Japan for 3 years.

Alliance Management

• staff

  

  Dean Yonenaga Alliance Manager
  Mr. Yonenaga has worked with Silicon Valley start-up companies to help them sell their products into the Japanese and Asia Pacific markets. He is a sales/marketing/business development professional with 25+ years experience in the high tech industry. He has worked with US companies to establish joint venture partnerships in Japan, develop OEM relationships with Japanese equipment suppliers, and sell directly to the Japanese customers. He has worked with Invarium, Sensys, OnWafer, and Prometrix; and is currently working at Cadence Design Systems.

  

  Nanaka King Alliance Manager
  Ms. King is a well-rounded language professional and a founder of a language service company, ExLingo. Earlier in her career, she worked for a leading trading company in Tokyo as a sales and marketing representative for a semiconductor device. Shortly after moving to the US in 2002, she joined the International Communications Team for YAHOO!’s search division to support launch, localization and operation of regional offices across Europe and Asia. With her excellent verbal and written communication skills and deep knowledge of Japanese corporate culture acquired throughout her professional career, she decided to become a professional translator/interpreter to bridge communication gaps often found in Japanese and English language as well as Japanese and American corporate culture. In most recent years she has exclusively worked for a prominent law firm in Silicon Valley as an in-house translator, providing translation services for corporate matters, environmental lawsuits and patent litigations.

   

  

  Yoshi Manabe Corporate Sponsorship Manager

Communications

• staff

  

  Erny Arifin Newsletter/Media Manager

   

  

  Joe Quinlan Contents Manager
  Mr. Quinlan is Sales Manager at Mitsubishi Cable, in charge of North American sales of high-tech seals, wiring and inductors. He is an experienced sales and marketing professional with deep knowledge of business practices in the US, Japan and Asia. Mr. Quinlan is fluent in both spoken and written Japanese, giving him a strong ability to interface in both the American and Japanese business cultures. He previously worked in Tokyo at an IT subsidiary of the trading company Itochu, and then later held various marketing positions at Silicon Graphics (SGI). He is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

  

  Kristen Jacobsen Contents Writer
  Ms. Jacobsen is a Marketing Communications professional with three years experience in marketing for high tech, higher education, and non-profit groups. Her most recent position was at Sun Microsystems as an Advertising Editor for their behavioral targeted advertising campaign. She is a recent graduate of the Monterey Institute of International Studies with an MBA focused in International Marketing. Her passions include cross-cultural communications strategy and Dr. Who. She has lived in Japan for two years, which gave her knowledge not only of the Japanese language, but the culture as well. In addition to her work with the Keizai Society she also volunteers with the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association as their Marcom Manager. She is also currently looking for her next professional opportunity.

Program Operations

• staff

  

  Gordon Sasamori Director of IT
  Mr. Sasamori is an experienced semiconductor systems and applications engineer in the consumer electronics industry. He has deep knowledge of the development of chips from conception to production. Through hands on development of first silicon validation boards, debug and bring-up in lab, he has contributed to the successful release of chips to production. He is also skilled in pre-sales negotiation with the customer to define chip specification and to architect the win-win solution. Maximizing his Japanese and English bilingual abilities, he has been instrumental in coordinating world — wide development of projects. http://wiliki.com

  

  Jennifer Nakamura Assistant Webmaster

   

  

  Jun Zhang Office/Event Manager

   

  

  Junko Takiguchi Office/Event Manager
  Ms. Takiguchi has extensive experiences in operation, project management and sales fields in multinational companies including Ford Motor Company, Mazda Motor Corporation and Hitachi Cable America. With her experience and profession, she demonstrates ability to interface in both American and Japanese corporate cultures.

  

  Sanae Nakamura Treasurer
  Ms. Nakamura works as a certified senior adviser to support Japanese senior citizens in the financial, legal and social issues. She is an experienced accounting and HR professional in Japanese companies such as MC (Mitsubishi Chemical) Research & Innovation Center, Valqua America, Inc. and Mitsui Zosen USA, Inc. She played a leadership role in establishing a new research center of Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation in Silicon Valley. She volunteers at the San Mateo Buddhist Temple, Women’s Association as a treasurer.

  

  Shinka Umesaki Graphic/Web
  Ms. Umesaki, a graphic designer and the owner of Shinaworks, www.shinaworks.com, has been actively working in the Bay Area for the past couple years. Shinaworks specializes in design of printed materials for such as packaging that are widely seen in Asian supermarkets. Her signature design approach is incorporating trends from both Japan and America.

  Ms. Umesaki was influenced by her father who owned an architectural design company, and after moving to the United States, she focused her career ambitions on graphic design. While studying design at a private school, she worked for seven years at Ad MOO Design LLC. in East Bay, later serving as the company’s head designer. She also majored in Marketing at San Francisco State University to cultivate a wider perspectives on business and customer needs, helping her provide greater service to customers after she created her own service, Shinaworks.

Board Member

• Nadine Grant

  

  Nadine Grant President Emeritus
  Mrs. Grant has been president of the Keizai Society since 1995. She is also a principal of Managing American Performance (MAP) an international management consulting company, helping especially start-up companies as an interim COO and executive coach, dealing especially with hiring, development and retention. A graduate of UC Berkeley, she come from a software systems engineering background that includes
  technical management in R&D, Engineering, Manufacturing and Marketing /Sales.

• Richard Dasher

  

  Richard Dasher
  Dr. Dasher has been Director of the US-Asia Technology Management Center since 1994 and Executive Director of the Center for Integrated Systems since 1998. Both organizations are in the Stanford University School of Engineering. He also holds Consulting Professor appointments at Stanford in Electrical Engineering (technology management) and in Asian Languages (Japanese business).

  From 2004, Dr. Dasher became the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the senior governance of a Japanese national university, serving a term on the Board of Directors of Tohoku University. He continues on the Management Council of Tohoku University and as Special Adviser to the Tohoku University president. He is on the Program Review Committee for the Japanese Ministry of Education’s World Premier International Research Center initiative. From 2001-2003, he was a member of the International Advisory Committee to the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy in regard to the creation of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.

  Also active in business and management consulting, Dr. Dasher is an outside board director of ZyCube Inc. in Tokyo, Japan, and he is an adviser to several start-up companies in the U.S. and China. Dr. Dasher has been an adviser to the JETRO- sponsored US-Japan Business Incubation Center in San Jose, California, since 2000.

  From 1990 – 93, Dr. Dasher was a board director of two Japanese companies in Tokyo, at which he developed new business in international licensing of media rights packages and other intellectual properties. From 1986 – 90, he was Director of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute advanced training centers in Japan and Korea, which provide full-time curricula to U.S. and select Commonwealth country diplomats assigned to those countries.

  He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Linguistics from Stanford University and is co-author of the book Regularity in Semantic Change (Cambridge University Press, 2002). Having received the Bachelor of Music degree in clarinet and orchestra conducting in 1977 from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he served on the faculty of his alma mater from 1978-85 while a graduate student at Stanford. He maintains an active interest in performing and listening to music.

• Koji Osawa

  

  Koji Osawa Global Catalyst Partners
  Koji Osawa, Ph.D. is managing principal, Asia, and co-founder at Global Catalyst Partners. He has extensive experience in investment and management of high-tech companies in Asia and the United States. Dr. Osawa was at Mitsubishi Corporation for 14 years, starting in 1985, and served as division manager, Mitsubishi International Corporation (Palo Alto office), 1993 through 1999. He was responsible for business development with Silicon Valley companies in the areas of semiconductors, communications, and software. During this period, he invested in several private companies and venture capital funds. He arranged a wide range of business agreements between these private companies and prominent Japanese and Asian companies, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of business. Dr. Osawa also served as general manager of MC Silicon Valley, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corp., and has been responsible for managing a U.S. investment fund since 1998.

  Dr. Osawa serves on the boards of Siimpel, Aquest, Verient, and Reperio, and is the board observer for Miradia and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC). He works closely with Beceem Communications, Newport Media, Melodis, and Ikoa.

  Dr. Osawa serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations: Global Catalyst Foundation, Japan Technology Professionals Association, Keizai Society, Relief International-Schools Online (www.ri.org and www.schoolsonline.org), and Silicon Valley Japanese Entrepreneurs Network.

  Dr. Osawa received his BS in electronics from Keio University, Japan, and his Ph.D. in engineering from Tohoku University, Japan.

• Tsuyoshi Taira

  

  Tsuyoshi Taira Tazan International Inc.
  Tsuyoshi Taira is the CEO of Tazan International Inc, a Venture Capital and Management Consultancy Firm. Mr. Taira has been involved with a number of Silicon Valley startup companies as founding investor/director including Atmel Semiconductor (NASDAQ: ATML), Pico Power Technology Inc (acquired by Cirrus Logic), Junglee Corporation (acquired by Amazon.com, NASDAQ: AMZN), Armedia (acquired by Broadcom, NASDAQ: BRCM), Apptivity (acquired by Progress Software, NASDAQ: PRGS) and many others. He has been instrumental in providing seed stage financing, management and marketing advice, especially f or the Far Eastern market to the startup companies. Currently he serves on the boards of Silicon Storage Technology Inc. (flash memory company),, and Mino Wireless (mobile wireless), Xcidia Inc (gift e-commerce), HCD corporation(IC connectors). In addition, he is on the advisory board of Reveo (Revolutionary Electro Optics Technology Company) and several other companies. Previously, Mr. Taira was Chairman of Sanyo Semiconductor directing Sanyo’s US marketing strategy. Most of his career was spent at Sanyo Corporation except for five years when he worked at Fairchild Semiconductor. Mr. Taira graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan University with a BSEE. He also received an Honorary Doctor of Humanities from Newport Asia Pacific University in March 2000. He has published a number of books including Audio Amplifier, Transistor Physics and Application as a Co-author and most recently a book on entrepreneurship, My fellow engineer, let’s challenge from Nikkei BP.

• Mark Kato

  

  Mark Kato
  Mr. Kato is a Sales, Marketing, & Business Development professional with more than 35 years of experience in high tech industries. Now he is CEO at Silicon Valley-Japan Business Consulting (www.svjbc.com ) and is helping Japanese and American clients to initiate/expand their businesses between the US and Japan. He has worked for Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies as a Director for Japanese Business and for Advanced Micro Devices as a Senior Director of Global Accounts. Using his extensive knowledge of American and Japanese businesses, he has built successful, mutually beneficial executive level relationships between large Japanese corporations and HQs of large American companies.

Advisory Member

• Scott Ellman

  

  Scott Ellman USAsia Venture Partners
  Scott is CEO of USAsia Venture Partners, a consultancy that provides marketing, alliance, and business development services to US and Asian companies. Previously, Scott held senior positions at several high technology pioneers where, among other things, he managed some of the companies’ most important alliances such as those with Hitachi, Toshiba, Oracle, NEC, Dell, IBM, and HP. He was also the co-founder and VP of Marketing at the for-profit division of SeniorNet.org, a world leader in teaching older citizens how to use computers and the Internet. There, Scott was instrumental in every step of the company’s evolution, from co-writing the business plan and raising venture capital to forging strategic partnerships with eBay and IBM. Scott holds MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s of science in applied mathematics and economics from Brown University.

Yoichiro (Yokum) Taku



Yoichiro (Yokum) Taku Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Yokum is a corporate and securities partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Yokum represents technology and growth companies at all stages of development, through private financings, strategic transactions, public offerings, and mergers and acquisitions. He also represents investors in venture capital financings. Yokum has advised numerous entrepreneurs from initial company formation to liquidity event. At any time, Yokum typically represents several start-up companies seeking venture financing, private companies that have received financing, and publicly traded companies.Yokum also leads Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s Japan practice. He advises U.S. companies on their transactions in Japan, and Japanese companies on their transactions in the United States. Yokum also advises numerous companies with operations in Asia. Yokum worked at the Tokyo law firm of Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu in 1994 and 1995.Yokum maintains a personal blog at www.startupcompanylawyer.com.