TEAM

    • Makoto Haruta
    • Director & ChairmanMakoto 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 Exa Wizards Inc.) in February 2016. Current position since November 2018.

      Chairman’s Message

    • Ko Ishiyama
    • Representative Director & PresidentKo Ishiyama

      Visiting Professor, Shizuoka University, Visiting Associate Professor, Tokyo University. 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.

      President’s Message

    • Yutaka Sakane
    • DirectorYutaka 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.
    • Makoto Aou
    • DirectorMakoto Aou
      Mrs. Aou has been a board member of the company since Jun 2016. She was an Executive Officer in charge of new business development and marketing at Pasona Tech, the first female to get appointed as Executive Officer. In 2010, she founded an in-house venture capital firm of Pasona Tech, and had undertaken a number of projects including the establishment of a JV in Thailand and cloud sourcing service provider Job-Hub. Mrs. Aou was also responsible for partnership projects in industry, government and academia at Pasona Tech.
    • Toshikazu Furuya
    • Director FellowToshikazu Furuya
      Mr. Furuya co-founded ExaIntelligence, a startup company specializing in AI technologies such as deep learning in Feb 2016. He manages numerous AI projects at a time, and contributes to the further adoption of AI in the service industry. Having founded several start-up companies, Mr. Furuya has a vast amount of entrepreneurial experience. He founded a data analytics company in Apr 2012 during his PhD, and developed a stock trading platform using machine learning. He also started a ICT-enabled caregiving business. He also worked on research that aimed to identify pulmonary nodules using Deep Learning and GroupLasso. Mr. Furuya was named as one of the 19 most outstanding data scientists of Japan by Diamond Weekly. He holds an MBA and PhD in information sciences from Kyoto University
    • Yoichi Takebayashi
    • Outside Director FellowYoichi Takebayashi
      Mr. Takebayashi holds a PhD from Tohoku University. He started his career in 1980 by joining Tokyo Shibaura Electric (now known as Toshiba Corporation). During his time at MIT Media Lab, he worked closely with the famous AI research scholar Marvin Minsky. Following his career at Toshiba Research Center, he went on to teach at Shizuoka University in 2002. A year later in 2003, he co-founded Digital Sensation and was appointed Chairman of the Board. Since Oct 2017 following the merger, he has served under his current role. He is a tenured professor of creation science at Shizuoka University.
    • Tomohiro Tange
    • Outside DirectorTomohiro Tange
      Mr. Tange joined E&Y TAS in 2006. He was involved in valuation, restructuring, and structuring advice practices. Mr. Tange played an instrumental role in the planning of the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (“INCJ”) , with focus on investment strategy planning, new business investments, acquisition of overseas companies, carve-out transactions, venture capital investments, fund investments, as well as industrial and social problem solutions. He has a broad range of industry experience, including in robotics, AI, IOT, Big Data, industrial internet, and ICT healthcare. He holds a BS degree in corporate finance from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.
    • Yasushi Shingai
    • Outside DirectorYasushi 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 Outside 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 served as External Board Director at Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd. and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc.
    • Takuma Oue
    • Executive OfficerTakuma Oue

      Graduated from the Faculty of Engineering and the Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University. He joined Boston Consulting Group in April 2013, and has engaged in numerous projects such as business growth strategies, corporate reform, and new business development. He joined Exawizards in January 2018, and has been in the current position since April 2019.

    • Satoshi Ishino
    • Executive OfficerSatoshi Ishino

      Graduated from the Faculty of Economics, Keio University, where he belonged to the Water Polo Team. He joined P&G Japan in April 2008, and worked on marketing electric toothbrushes in the Japanese market. He was relocated to P&G Singapore in April 2009, where he led multiple hair care brands and engaged in portfolio management in the Asian market. In July 2012, he led customer marketing with a major Japanese retail company at P&G Japan. He then joined McKinsey & Company in April 2014, and was appointed as an associate partner in 2018. He worked on growth strategies, new business development, organizational reform, and cost reduction of a Japanese consumer goods manufacturer; overseas strategies and asset management of a major trading company; and redevelopment of the industrial value chain with a Japanese financial institution. Such experiences gave him the desire to contribute to Japan’s new growth, which led him to join Exawizards in January 2019. He was appointed as an executive officer (executive secretary, corporate general manager) in April 2019.