Meet the Speakers

Full agenda to be announced soon.

Join the Waitlist

  • Mariana Zobel de Ayala is a Managing Director of Ayala Corporation, Southeast Asia’s oldest conglomerate, and concurrently serves as a Senior Vice President of Ayala Land, one of the region’s top three listed property developers.

    In her role, Ms. Zobel de Ayala leads the Leasing and Hospitality Group, overseeing more than two million square meters of commercial space through Ayala Malls, over seventy office buildings via Ayala Land Offices, and more than 4,800 hotel keys through Ayala Land Hospitality. She founded Ayala Land’s Leisure Estates division, focusing on transforming the Philippines into a major global tourism destination through master-planned, mixed-use developments in high-potential sites across Palawan, Batangas, and Bataan.

    She is a Board Director of Ayala Land and actively participates in its Executive, Risk Oversight, and Sustainability Committees. Mariana also serves as a Director of AREIT, Ayala Land’s listed REIT subsidiary with over USD 2 billion in assets under management. Additionally, she is a Board Director of Bank of the Philippine Islands, one of the country’s largest banks, and is a member of the Management Committee of the Ayala Group.

    Ms. Zobel de Ayala is a board advisor for Asia Partners, a Singapore-based growth equity firm managing over USD 1 billion, which focuses on scaling high-growth technology companies in Southeast Asia. She is also a board director of U-Go, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting educational equality in emerging markets by providing scholarships to women pursuing higher education.

    Prior to her current roles, Mariana served as Senior Vice President at the Bank of the Philippine Islands, leading the development of its marketing and digital platforms for the Consumer Banking division. She has also held various roles within Ayala Land, including project lead for various residential condominiums and office buildings, general manager of a shopping mall, and Deputy Head of Ayala Malls. Her career at Ayala Group began as a corporate strategy and business development associate at Ayala Corporation, where she supported portfolio reviews and healthcare business development initiatives.

    Mariana started her professional journey at J.P. Morgan in New York. She holds a BA in Social Studies (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) from Harvard College and an MBA from INSEAD.

  • Prior to joining the Managing Board in March 2020, Jan supported the transformation into the holding company CHAPTERS Group is today several years as an investor. He has extensive experience as an investor as founder and Managing Director of JMX Capital GmbH and also acts as Chairman of the Board for Grafenia plc (UK).

  • Nozomu Tsunoda founded LegalOn with the aim of enhancing the quality of legal services by leveraging cutting-edge technology like AI. Previously, he worked as a corporate lawyer at Mori Hamada, one of the Big 4 law firms in Japan.

James Riney

  • James is the CEO Founding Partner of Coral Capital, where he seeks to invest in founders building the most important companies in Japan across all sectors and stages from SaaS all the way to fusion. The firm has invested in some of Japan’s most promising startups, including Kakehashi, Kyoto Fusioneering, Hacomono, Kaminashi, and SmartHR, where James served on the Board.

    Prior to Coral, James launched the first fund for 500 Startups in Japan, and before that he covered early stage investments for DeNA’s venture arm, focusing on Silicon Valley and Asia.

    Before investing, he was the founding CEO of ResuPress (now Coincheck, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan), and the creator of STORYS.JP, the “Medium.com of Japan.” In another life, he worked at J.P. Morgan in New York and Tokyo. He grew up in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese.

    In his free time, he is an avid snowboarder, diver, and yakitori connoisseur.

Nozomu Tsunoda

Jan-Hendrik Mohr

Mariana Zobel de Ayala

  • Kiyoshi Seko joined Kyoto Fusioneering Ltd in April 2021. At KF, he oversees overall business operations, fundraising, PR & marketing, etc. Prior to joining KF, Seko spent approximately 10 years at Mitsubishi Corporation, executing numerous business development projects and strategic investments, including overseas joint venture establishment and cross-border M&A. After obtaining an MBA, he executed multiple investments at Coral Capital, one of Japan's leading VCs, focusing on deep tech areas, including investment in KF. Seko holds a Master's degree in Physics and Engineering from the University of Tokyo and an European MBA from IE Business School.

Tatsuo Kawasaki

  • Tatsuo is Chairman and Co-founder of Unison Capital which was founded in 1998. At Unison, he has been responsible for investment portfolios across a wide range of businesses, including automobile, electronics, financial services, consumer goods and services, and business services. Since May 2025, he has been serving as Vice President in charge of Finance at Keio University.

    Tatsuo actively serves for various companies and institutions as a board member, advisor or in a similar capacity, including Tier IV, Nutrix AG, Way Equity Partners, Environment Technologies Fund, GLIN Capital Partners, Asia Society in Japan, The International House of Japan and The Association of Corporate Executives (“Doyukai”).

    Prior to Unison, Tatsuo’s professional experience includes NextCard (a US based fin-tech venture), McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Keio University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Kiyoshi Seko

  • Toru Miyagi has a work experience spanning from 2014 to the present. Miyagi started as a Consultant at McKinsey & Company in April 2014 and worked in that role until April 2018. In May 2018, Miyagi co-founded UPSIDER, Inc. and currently holds the position of Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer there.

    Toru Miyagi attended The University of Tokyo from 2009 to 2014, earning a Bachelor's degree in Sports Science and Education.

Kenta Akiyama

  • Kenta Akiyama joined Lazard in 2005 and was appointed Head of Investment Banking Japan in 2021. Throughout his career, he has focused on M&A advisory across all industries mainly in cross-border context. From 2006 to 2007, he was on secondment to Lazard NY office, and was involved in various cross-Atlantic/Pacific M&A transactions.

    Prior to joining Lazard, he worked in the M&A department of Daiwa Securities SMBC.

    Waseda University, B.A. in Economics

Toru Miyagi

Paul McInerney

  • Paul joined Recruit Co., Ltd. in 1997 and co-led digital business building and corporate venture capital investing efforts. While at Recruit, Paul was also a founding member of Golfport (an online golf reservation site) – subsequently sold to Rakuten in 2002.

    He joined McKinsey & Company’s Tokyo Office in 2002, was elected Partner in 2007 and Senior Partner in 2014. He supported clients in the retail, consumer products, media, telecommunications, finance, and pharmaceutical industries with growth strategy, digital and AI, branding, marketing, and M&A.

    He has served as head of the Asia Pacific Marketing & Sales Group, head of the Asia Pacific Analytics Group, head of the Asia Pacific Consumer Goods & Small Business Group, and Managing Partner of QuantumBlack Japan

    Paul joined Incubate Fund as a General Partner in March 2021.

    Paul has authored articles in the Harvard Business Review, Nikkei Business, Toyo Keizai and speaks regularly at industry events. Paul grew up in Australia and has been a resident of Japan for the past 30 years. He is a co-founder and board member of UWC ISAK Japan.

Gaudenz H. Trapp

  • Mr. Imai joined Farallon Capital Management in 2013, and is a Partner in the Tokyo office. Previously, Mr. Imai worked as a senior associate at Bain Capital in Boston and Tokyo. Prior to Bain, Mr. Imai worked as an associate attorney at Nishimura & Asahi in Tokyo. Mr. Imai received an LL.B. from The University of Tokyo, and an MBA and M.S. in Environment and Resources from Stanford University.

Fady Yacoub

  • Fady Yacoub is a Co-Founder and Partner at HOF Capital, a $6B AUM New York–based venture capital firm. He invests in companies rewriting foundational industries through advanced software and AI.

    At HOF, he led investments in Anthropic, Epic Games, SoFi, Extropic, Klarna, UiPath, and others across stages.

    He holds dual degrees in Business Administration and Psychology from the University of Southern California.

Eijiro Imai

  • Christophe founded multiple companies and invests through Atlantic in early-stage companies in AI/Data, Energy/Climate, Resilience/Defense, and Industrial Tech. Some of those companies are global category leaders today, including SoundCloud, GetYourGuide, Clue, Omio, Zenjob, Wandelbots, Mimi, Softr, Bliq, Again, Phlair and Harmattan.


    FoodLabs invests in Food & Climate, backing trailblazers such as Formo, Choco, Stenon, Holy, Infinite Roots, Ahead and InPlanet. FoodLabs supports entrepreneurs who tackle some of the most pressing challenges of our time, such as climate, food security, and human health.
    Christophe is a tech entrepreneur; he founded and exited HERE Technologies, Plazes, Txtr and played a leading role in the emergence of the German/European venture ecosystem.

Christophe Maire