Event Detail

Please join the Business Programs and External Affairs Committees - Kansai in welcoming successful entrepreneur, investor, researcher and consultant Mr. Carl Kay to the Kansai. He will present on his experiences in entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and investment in both America and Japan. Carl will assert that there are big gaps and differences in the environment for and practice of entrepreneurship between Japan and the US and that discussions on this topic are very instructive and valuable. He feels there is enough of a community in Japan of English-speaking entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs to support more of such activity. Carl will present an informative and thought-provoking look at these topics, highlighted by real examples from successful and failed Japanese startups. Carl will also discuss the importance of developing intrapreneurship within organizations to spark creativity, new ideas and innovation. Carl Kay is an experienced entrepreneur and consultant who works with services sector companies in the US and Japan to develop new markets, new capabilities and new partnerships. After graduating from Harvard in 1978, Carl founded a company that grew to become a global leader in Japanese software localization services. Carl sold that firm in 1998 to a company that went public on the US NASDAQ in 1999. Since 2000 Carl has been active as an angel investor and outside director at several firms including J-Seed Ventures. He was adjunct faculty member at Meiji University and is author of a book and numerous articles about services in Japan. Carl is a Doctor of Business candidate at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and a Research Associate at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard. He is volunteer president of the Harvard Club of Japan, the largest organization of Harvard alumni in Asia, and a Director of the Japan Society of Boston, founded in 1904 as the first Japan Society in the United States. Carl splits his time between residences in Tokyo, Japan and Cambridge, Massachusetts.