Japan Business Strategy Forum 2006 - Speakers | Print |

 

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Click on speaker names for title and biography.

Brian Burns, ViXS
William Chen, Authenex
Robert V. Dickinson, California Micro Devices
John Ellenby, GeoVector Corporation
Hajime Furuta, Governor, Gifu Prefecture
Phil Keys, Nikkei Electronics
Scott Marquardt, NXP Semiconductors (formerly Philips
       Semiconductors)
Michael W. Michalak, U.S. Department of State
Paul Misener, Amazon.com
Yuji Muranaga, JETRO San Francisco Office
Jerome Noll, Symantec Corporation
Masaru Sakamoto, NEC
Allen Spiegler, Fox Technologies
Hiroshi Tsukamoto, JETRO Tokyo Office
       Download his presentation (1.33 MB)

Kozo Yamamoto, METI
Masafumi Yasukagawa, Toshiba America, Inc.
Vinie Zhang, Hitachi

Moderators

Patrick Bray, Pacific Vision Partners
Michael Kanellos, CNET News.com


Patrick Bray
       Director
       Pacific Vision Partners

Patrick Bray is Director of Pacific Vision Partners, an international business development firm focused on assisting US and Japanese IT companies in forming strategic alliances.

Mr. Bray has almost 20 years experience in US-Japan business including 10 years working for JETRO San Francisco where he was the Director of Business Development.  He has also been active in the management of companies he has worked with, notably as President and COO of Aplix Corporation of America where he oversaw formation of its subsidiaries in the US and the EU, and currently with GeoVector as the Representative Director of GeoVector Japan where he oversaw their market entry and launch, and currently, is managing their Japan market expansion.

Mr. Bray received a BS degree in Management at Sacramento State University and an MBA from San Francisco State University.  He also studied at MITI's (now METI) Institute for International Studies and Training in Japan.  He speaks regularly on trade and investment issues for academic and business audiences in the US and Japan.

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Brian Burns
       Vice President, Asia Pacific
       ViXS Systems

Mr. Burns is currently Vice President, Asia Pacific for ViXS Systems and is currently establishing ViXS operations in Greater China. Mr. Burns has over twenty years' international experience in building sales organizations and initiating strategic relationships in new Asian markets for U.S. high-technology and Internet firms. Mr. Burns was responsible for building out the Japan operations for Supermac, Cybersource, and Microsoft WebTV, and has also worked in Japan, Hong Kong, China, and Vietnam for companies such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, and Linotype. In addition to senior level management positions held, Mr. Burns has worked both in Japan and the United States as a design and research engineer in the computer and automation fields.

Mr. Burns holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering, Oriental Languages, and an MBA, all from the University of California at Berkeley. He was awarded the InterPacific Scholarship at Berkeley and was also an exchange student at Keio University Graduate School of Business in Japan. Mr. Burns is fluent in Japanese and proficient in Mandarin Chinese.

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William Chen
       Vice President of Sales
       Authenex

William Chen is Vice President of Sales for Authenex. Authenex produces the most affordable, secure and easy-to-use suite of applications and hardware, making the highest standards in e-security available to organizations of all sizes, from enterprises to small and medium sized businesses. It strives to provide strong security solutions to network integrity and data security, which enables our customers to have secure, fast and easy access to applications and information that ultimately enhances their efficiency, productivity, and peace of mind.

Mr. Chen joined Authenex in September 2003 with over 12 years of experience in the computer/optical networking and information security industries. He played major roles in R&D and Sales & Marketing departments in several different organizations such as E-TEK Dynamics (Now “JDSU”), Flextronics, Kymata, Alcatel, etc.

Mr. Chen holds BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from National Taiwan University in Taiwan and MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley, California.

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Robert V. Dickinson
       President and Chief Executive Officer
       California Micro Devices (CMD)

Robert V. Dickinson joined CMD in April 2001 with over 37 years of experience in the computer and semiconductor industries.  Immediately before joining CMD he was Vice President and General Manager of the Optical Storage Division of Cirrus Logic, Inc., as well as serving in several other senior executive roles including President of the Cirrus Logic subsidiary in Japan.  Prior to Cirrus Logic, he held senior management positions at Western Digital Corporation following its acquisition of Verticom, Inc., where he served as President and CEO, Zilog, and Burroughs. 

Mr. Dickinson has been a member of  the Transmeta Corporation Board of Directors since May 2005. Mr. Dickinson has an AB from UC Berkeley and an MS from the University of Washington, both in physics. He was also a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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John Ellenby
       Co-founder, President and CEO
       GeoVector Corporation

John Ellenby is co-founder, President and CEO for GeoVector Corporation.  GeoVector develops technologies allowing cell phone users to point at objects and receive information - real world search by just pointing your cell phone.

Mr. Ellenby started his career as a consulting designer for Ferranti
Limited.  Later working at Xerox PARC he directed the development of the Alto computer and laser printer.  In 1980, Mr. Ellenby founded Grid Systems Corporation, which is known as the world's first lap top manufacturer and a pioneer in many areas of mobile computing.  During his time at Grid Mr. Ellenby worked directly with the NASA Astronaut Office to deploy Grid laptops on the Space Shuttle, and also worked developing and deploying a mission critical system for the White House Communications Agency. After Mr. Ellenby left Grid, he co-founded Agilis Corporation where he designed a mobile computing and wireless communication system for a mission critical US Government application.

Mr. Ellenby graduated with first class honors from University College, London in 1962 and held a State Studentship during three years in the Research Division of the London School of Economics. Mr. Ellenby has held tenured positions at the LSE and in the Computer Science Department of Edinburgh University.

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Hajime Furuta
       Governor
       Gifu Prefecture, Japan

Hajime Furuta was born in Gifu City in 1947.  In 1965, when he was a student at Gifu Prefectural Senior High School, he was chosen as the final torchbearer at the opening ceremony of the National Athletic Meet held in Gifu Prefecture.

After graduating from the Tokyo University Faculty of Law he joined the then Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).  He went to France to study at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) as part of his employment at MITI.  From 1994 to 1996 he served as the Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister during both the Hata and Murayama administrations. 

Following this he was appointed the Director-General of the Economic Cooperation Department in the International Trade Policy Bureau of MITI, and the Director-General for Commerce and Distribution Policy in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.  In 2002, at the request of the Office of the Prime Minister and the then Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, he was appointed as the Director-General of the Economic Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  He played a pivotal role in the reform of the Foreign Ministry and was involved in the Official Development Assistance (ODA) reform.  After leaving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was elected as the Governor of Gifu Prefecture in February 2005.

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Michael Kanellos
       Editor At Large
       CNET News.com

Michael Kanellos is editor at large at CNET News.com, where he covers hardware, emerging trends, start-ups and the tech industry overseas. He has appeared on National Public Radio, The Early Show on CBS, CNBC, Fox News and other media outlets on behalf of CNET News.com as well as participated in a number of panels. In 2005, he, along with two other News.com writers, won an award for online feature writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. A graduate of Cornell University and the University of California Hastings College of the law, he has also worked as an attorney and a travel writer.

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Phil Keys
       U.S. Correspondent
       Nikkei Electronics

Before joining Nikkei Business Publications in 1998, Phil Keys spent over ten years working in positions in the high technology industry related to the Japanese computer market, with seven of those actually based in Japan. Before joining Nikkei Electronics in June of 2001, Phil spent three years as a staff editor for another NikkeiBP publication, Nikkei Internet Technology. Graduated with a Bachelors Degree from UC Berkeley and also spent one year as an exchange student at International Christian University in Tokyo.

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Scott Marquardt
       Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing APAC
       NXP Semiconductors (formerly Philips 
       Semiconductors)

Scott Marquardt is the SVP Sales & Marketing APAC for NXP Semiconductors (formerly Philips Semiconductors) and has been based in Tokyo for the past 4 years.  Scott is a veteran of both large companies and startups.  Prior to joining Philips Semiconductors, he was the SVP Global Sales for Philips Components and previously worked for Philips Consumer Communications.

Scott was the founding CEO of the mobile rich-media software company, ActiveSky, based in San Mateo (coincidentally in the same premises now occupied by YouTube).  ActiveSky participated in Microsoft’s PocketPC launch in April 2000, and provided the technology for a live “Baseball Tracker” service run on the KDDI network in Japan.

After completing an MBA at Stanford in 1983, Scott joined the Macintosh Division of Apple Computer and subsequently spent 8 years with Apple Europe.  He joined PCC in Le Mans, France in 1996.

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Michael W. Michalak
       U.S. Senior Official to APEC
       Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
       U.S. Department of State

Michael W. Michalak, a career Foreign Service Officer with extensive knowledge and experience in Asia, was appointed U.S. Senior Official to APEC, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, in July 2005. Prior to his current position, he was Deputy Chief of Mission to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo and had served for almost four years as the Minister-Counselor in the Embassy's Economic Section.

In his over 30 years of service with the U.S. Department of State, Mr. Michalak has worked in Sydney, Australia; Islamabad, Pakistan; Beijing, China; as well as Washington, D.C., where he was assigned to the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, the Office for Japan and the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs. He received a group award for valor for his actions in time of crisis when the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad was burned down.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Mr. Michalak received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Physics from Oakland University in Rochester, MI, and Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., respectively. He received a second Master's degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. He speaks Chinese, Japanese and French.

Mr. Michalak and his wife have a 14 year-old daughter. He also has two grown daughters from a previous marriage.

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Paul Misener
       Vice President for Global Public Policy
       Amazon.com

Both an engineer (B.S., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Princeton University, 1985) and lawyer (J.D., George Mason University, 1993; Distinguished Alumni Award, 2001), Paul Misener is Amazon.com’s Vice President for Global Public Policy.  He is responsible for formulating and representing the company’s public policy positions worldwide, as well as for managing policy specialists in Washington, Brussels, Tokyo, Ottawa, Beijing, and elsewhere.

Once a partner in the law firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding, Paul also served as Senior Legal Advisor to FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth.  Prior to his government service, he was Intel’s Manager of Telecommunications and Computer Technology Policy, and co-founder and leader of the computer industry’s Internet Access Coalition.

In the late 1980s, Paul was a policy specialist for the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, where he was a U.S. delegate to several conferences of the International Telecommunication Union.  Prior to that, he designed communications systems for the military.

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Yuji Muranaga
       Chief Executive Director
       JETRO, San Francisco

Muranaga joined Japan's Ministry of International Trade & Industry (MITI) in 1983, which was later renamed Ministry of Economics, Trade & Industry (METI).  He has served as director of a number of areas in METI such as the Patent Office, Minister's Secretariat, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Industrial Science and Technology Policy and Environment Bureau. 

He had previously lived in the U.S. when he was a Visiting Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University from 1994 to 1995.  He also served as Consul of the Consulate General of Japan in New York from 1999 to 2002.  He was recently appointed as Chief Executive Director of JETRO San Francisco in July 2006.

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Jerome Noll
       Senior Director of Business Development 
       and Japan Office
       Symantec

Mr. Noll leads the Symantec Japan Business Development and Japan Office sales support teams based in Mountain View for Symantec K.K.   In this role he is responsible for developing new revenue streams within Japan, business planning and analysis, interfacing with the business units for needs and feedback, driving key initiatives within Symantec KK and assisting the sales team in training partners and closing large deals.

Prior to this role he led the Marketing team at VERITAS Software K.K. for six years where he owned and drove all of the company’s marketing efforts and programs in Japan.  While in Japan Mr. Noll was actively involved in creating and driving all marketing programs and campaigns, strategic relationships, PR, company branding, product marketing, localization and internationalization planning, the global web as well as founding the annual Vision user conference.   Due to his invaluable support in meeting the VERITAS Japan’s sales and profitability targets he was appointed to the VERITAS Software K.K. board of directors.
 
Prior to his joining VERITAS in Japan in 1999, Mr. Noll was responsible for starting South Asia sales and marketing activities for Auspex Systems in Singapore.

In the course of his professional career, Mr. Noll has also held a variety of enterprise marketing and sales positions at Auspex Systems, Sun Microsystems and NCR Corporation.

Mr. Noll holds a degree from Georgetown University where he specialized in marketing and computer science.

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Masaru Sakamoto
       Vice President of Corporate Planning and
       Marketing
       NEC Corporation of America
 
Masaru Sakamoto is vice president of corporate planning for NEC Corporation of America (NECAM), a leading technology provider of IT, network and visual systems solutions in North America. In this role, Mr. Sakamoto is responsible for identifying new market opportunities, building new partnerships and strategic alliances and developing North America business strategies that promote NEC’s competitiveness and growth.
 
Mr. Sakamoto’s background spans more than 20 years of marketing and technology experience, beginning in 1983 when he joined NEC Corporation’s First North America Division. Subsequently, he advanced through a series of increasingly critical management roles with NEC business units in North America, with a focus on strategic planning and marketing.

Currently a member of several industry boards, including Vidient Systems, Inc., and the Open Group. He was formerly a board member of The Enterprise Network, a non-profit business incubator. He received a degree in economics from Keio University, Japan, and a master of business administration degree from Harvard University.

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Allen Spiegler
       Vice President of Strategic Alliances and Channels
       Fox Technologies

Allen Spiegler is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances and Channels at Fox Technologies (FoxT). Allen has a 20-year track record of selling, managing, and building Business Information solutions for global companies.  At FoxT Allen is responsible for the founding of FoxT Japan K.K. and is currently Co-Managing Director of FoxT Japan K.K.

Prior to FoxT, Allen was the SVP of Worldwide Sales at BlackPearl (now ACL Services) where he established a worldwide sales network covering the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe.  Prior to that Allen was the vice president of the Integrated Technology Group at Digitas, a leading strategy, marketing, and technology services firm that focuses on channel management. Prior to that, he was a Director at Oracle Corporation where, for ten years, he led sales, industry marketing, and service delivery organizations in the Americas and Europe. Before Oracle, Allen was responsible for all front office technology and support at MDFC, a commercial lending and leasing business owned by McDonnell Douglas (now BOEING).  Allen was also a Sales Engineer at IBM's New York Banking Office and a Research Engineer in the Database Research Group at IBM's Watson Research Center.

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Hiroshi Tsukamoto
       President
       JETRO, Tokyo Headquarters

Since joining the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1968, Mr. Tsukamoto has held various positions, including First Secretary of the Embassy of Japan in Indonesia, and Director-General of the General Coordination Department of the Osaka Bureau of International Trade and Industry. In 1992 Mr. Tsukamoto assumed the post of president of JETRO’s New York office, and in 1997 held the position of president of the Electronic Industries Association of Japan (EIAJ). He assumed his current position in 2002. Mr. Tsukamoto holds a degree in Law from Kyoto University.

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Kozo Yamamoto
       Senior Vice Minister
       Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

Graduating from the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Economics in 1971, Mr. Yamamoto began his career with the Ministry of Finance.  He graduated from the Graduate School of Business at Cornell University in 1973 and was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Affairs of Harvard University during 1981.

From 1979, he spent six years as the Deputy Director of the Commercial Banks Division of the Banking Bureau, and then served two years as Assistant Regional Commissioner (Direct Taxation Department) of the Fukuoka Regional Taxation Bureau before becoming Personal Secretary to Minister of Finance in 1987.

In 1993, Mr. Yamamoto was elected to the House of Representatives and was reelected for three more terms in 1996, 2000 and 2005.

After becoming Deputy Chairman, Policy Research Council of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 2001, he then spent 2004 as a lecturer at the Nishinippon Institute of Technology.  In 2005, he became Deputy Chairman of the Diet Affairs Committee of the LDP and became Senior Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2006.

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Masafumi Yasukagawa
       Senior VP and General Manager of Procurement
       & Export Division
       Toshiba America, Inc.

Masafumi Yasukagawa is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Toshiba America, Inc.’s Procurement & Export Division.   Mr. Yasukagawa’s 27-year career with Toshiba has been devoted to international procurement, initially supporting Toshiba’s power generation business and, more recently, managing Toshiba’s International Procurement Offices (IPO’s) in London and San Francisco.
 
In his current assignment, Mr. Yasukagawa oversees Toshiba’s U.S.-based IPO’s in their coordination of strategic purchasing relationships with North American-headquartered suppliers.    This activity contributes to Toshiba’s in-house and subsidiary companies’ efforts to further expand business in the digital media, mobile communications, power generation, and medical industries.
 
Prior to his overseas assignments, Mr. Yasukagawa’s procurement experience with Toshiba operations in Japan included planning, process innovation, budget control, and supplier development, primarily focusing on the energy and power generation sectors.    
 
Mr. Yasukagawa holds a degree from Keio University, Japan, where he majored in political science.

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Vinie Zhang
       Vice President of Corporate Venture Capital
       Group
       Hitachi

Vinie Zhang serves as the Vice President of Hitachi's corporate venture capital group responsible for strategic investment in IT, Bio-tech, telecommunications, and material science areas.  Prior to joining Hitachi, Vinie was a Vice President at Asiatech Ventures, an early-stage cross pacific venture fund, where she made numerous investments in enterprise software, wireless, and communications.   Earlier, Vinie was a Program Manager managing new product development efforts at Read-Rite Corporation, a US based thin-film head manufacturer.  She was also the Vice President of Sales and Marketing of FIT Bearings, a US/China joint venture start-up in the industrial component market.

A native of Shanghai, Vinie was the editor in chief of “We a Million”, a Shanghai-based school children newspaper with circulation of one million.  She was also the youngest TV producer and talk show host for Shanghai Television Station, producing a weekly feature program targeting the teenager audience.

Vinie has been a keen promoter of entrepreneurship and venture investing in China.  She was board member and founding chair of the VC group of HYSTA (HuaYuan Science and Technology Association, a premier mainland Chinese professional organization).  She is also the President of ASVC (Asia-Silicon Valley Connection), promoting the linkage of entrepreneurial initiatives between Asia and Silicon Valley.

Vinie was the recipient of a Haas MBA scholarship while receiving her MBA from Haas Business School at the University of California at Berkeley.  Vinie received her BS degrees Magna Cum Laude in Finance and Marketing from San Jose State University.

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