Role Description

The Venture Investments Manager will be part of a global team tasked with shaping and execution of the firm’s strategy and the realization of its ambitious vision through a set of programs (“channels”) intended to bring more digital innovation into the firm service offerings.

He/she will be responsible for administering investments via a set of channels crafted by the Ventures team, which is a sub-set of the Strategic Growth and Investment team and which manages a corporate venture capital fund of 10 billion yen.

These investments are intended to speed the company on the journey toward becoming a Digital Transformation company. This is essentially a new/re-imagined function for the company; as such, the team will help define the guiding principles by which Strategic Investment options are assessed, evaluate the channels for making investments, create and manage new channels, and work together with the business to execute.

The Manager, who will be guided by a veteran Ventures Lead, should be prepared to execute himself/herself while also managing small execution teams. This is an ideal role for someone who has served in a venture investment role within another large technology company and wants to shape an agenda in a rapidly evolving global organization, or someone with a background and 3+ years of experience in venture capital or private equity who has a strong desire to become more hands-on in searching for, evaluating, executing and assessing investments over the long term to contribute to the evolution of one of Japan’s largest and greatest companies.

Candidate Profile

• A reasonable understanding of how an in-house venture capital team operates, especially within the context of a large, highly distributed corporation.
• Familiarity with the technology VC community in Japan and/or globally
• Expert analytical skills; he/she must be able to regularly consume large amounts of detailed information in order to make informed decisions and provide guidance to the business. This information goes far beyond just financial details; he/she must be able to quickly discern the key success metrics within the target business and guide a team to uncover the necessary information to inform decisions.
• Experience coaching, mentoring, and motivating junior members of a team in the flawless execution of new programs within a large, complex global organization. This role will have at least one junior direct report and may have more, depending on the size and scale of the programs he/she creates and implements.
• Experience working both in Japan and overseas, ideally in a technology, consulting, or VC environment.
• Familiarity with consulting/services organizations and their operating models; a strong understanding of the growth triggers of a services business is extremely helpful in this role.

In terms of skills, the ideal candidate will possess:

• A deep curiosity and comfort asking questions to rapidly build an understanding of a business
• A strong team player who operates well in ambiguous situations with absolute attention to detail
• Very strong communication skills – can consume, organize, and present information across the full scope of a complex business
• Fluency in both Japanese and English is ideal

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