Board Members/Executive Officers

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  Representative Director & President

  Ko Ishiyama

  Former Director at Recruit Institute of Technology and Executive Manager of R&D at Recruit Holdings. Founded a big data startup that creates aggregation services in support of marketing professionals and sold it to Recruit Holdings, the parent company of indeed.com. Outside of work, he is an improvisational pianist and enjoys spending time with his wife.

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  Director & Chairman

  Makoto Haruta

  LL.B. from Kyoto University. Former Managing Director and Chairman at DeNA Co., Ltd, one of the largest mobile and e-commerce companies in Japan. Led it during IPO and M&A of multiple companies including Yokohama DeNA Bay Stars, a baseball team. Founded ExaIntelligence Inc. (now known as ExaWizards Inc.) in February 2016. Current position since November 2018.

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  Director

  Takuma Oue

  He joined Boston Consulting Group in 2013. After working on a number of projects including business growth strategy, corporate transformation, DX promotion, and new business launch, he joined ExaWizards in 2018. Since April 2019, as an executive officer of AI business, he has been in charge of several hundred DX/AI implementation projects (open innovation for large companies and startups) and service development. Graduated from the Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University. Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University (Research in AI and Data Science).

• 

  Director

  Yutaka Sakane

  Mr. Sakane has served as the CTO since Oct 2017 when Digital Sensation, the company he founded in 2004, merged with ExaIntelligence to form ExaWizards. At Digital Sensation, he served as CEO and Representative Director. Previously, he worked as an assistant at Shizuoka University’s School of Information Systems. Influenced by his father Mr. Sakane started programming at the age of three, and is a Humanitude instructor. He holds a master’s degree in information systems from Osaka University.

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  Outside Director

  Yasushi Shingai

  Mr. Shingai started his career by joining Japan Tobacco Inc. (“JT”, Former Japan Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation) in 1980. He became an acting project manager at New York office in 1989 and President of JT America Inc. in 1990. During six years as President, he undertook a number of joint research and development projects with pharmaceutical and bio-ventures in the U.S., and concurrently served as External Board Director at Cell Genesys,Inc., U.S. NASDAQ-listed biotechnology company. He got appointed as CFO of JT in 2005, Vice President of JT International in 2006 and Executive Vice President of JT in 2011. He currently serves as External Board Director at Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd., Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc., Dai-ichi Life Holdings, Inc. and Open8 Inc.

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  Outside Director

  Toshihiko Hiura

  Graduated from College of Arts and Science, The University of Tokyo, and completed the Harvard Business School MBA Program. In April 1983, he joined the Industrial Bank of Japan, Ltd. (currently Mizuho Bank, Ltd.). After leaving his job at the bank, he joined Bain & Company in February 1986. Since then, he has been engaging in management consulting for Japanese, American, and European companies in various fields for over 30 years. He was appointed as the Head Partner of Bain & Company’s Tokyo office in January 2008 and as the Chairman in April 2014. He also serves as the Outside Director for ARUHI Corporation and the Outside Director for Machino Research Institute,Inc.

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  Outside Director

  Naoko Munakata

  Ms. Naoko Munakata is a professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy, The University of Tokyo. She graduated from the Faculty of Law, The University of Tokyo, before receiving an MBA from Harvard Business School.

  Ms. Munakata joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (currently the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) and engaged in initiatives to liberalize trade, promote innovation, and revitalize the economy through a range of activities, such as launching new trade negotiations, which led to Japan’s first free-trade agreement and participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, supporting intellectual property strategies of start-ups and small- and medium-sized enterprises, strengthening the intellectual property-related litigation system, and infusing design management into government bodies (Declaration of Design Management). She studied economic integration in East Asia and the U.S. policy on Asia, among other subjects, at the Brookings Institution in the U.S. and other research centers, and authored Transforming East Asia (Brookings Institution Press). She has donned several hats, having served as Director-General, Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau, Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Commissioner of the Japan Patent Office until 2019. After assuming the current position in April 2021, she has taught a course on innovation governance.

• Executive Officer

  Tomoaki Maekawa

  Naofumi Ohtani

  Koji Hazama

  Tomoya Maekawa

  Taishin Demura

  Satoshi Ishino

  Tomohiko Kimura

  Saori Oji

  Daiki Hasegawa

  Kazutoshi Takimoto

  Nishanth Koganti

  Hirotsuna Fujiwara

  Kohei Okuno

  Yoritaka Handa

  Koichi Kawai

• Technology Officer

  Satoshi Asatani

  Masato Saito

  Akihiro Sato

  Kentaro Suto