Masanari Arai
CO-FOUNDER & CEO, KII CORPORATION
Masanari Arai was the co-founder and CEO of Synclore Corporation in Tokyo, Japan, which merged with Servo Software to become Kii. Synclore was founded in 2008 provides client-server software solutions for operators like Docomo and Softbank, based on its proprietary mobile phone back-up system, which is – with more than $200M of revenues – the world’s most commercially successful system in this space. Masanari has more than 15 years experience in the mobile software space in Silicon Valley and Japan. He joined Intellisync in 1995 as one of the original member of the company, where he served in various positions such as VP product marketing, VP business development, GM for Asia and President of Intellisync Japan. Prior to Intellisync, Masanari was at IBM where he was the product manager of original ThinkPad 700 Series. Masanari has a master of computer science from Toyohashi University of Technology.
Naoshi Suzuki
Co-Founder & President, Kii Corporation
Naoshi Suzuki co-founded Kii Corporation (f.k.a. Synclore Corporation) and created steady business with wireless operators and phone manufactures. Its server software serves more than 10 million users everyday. Prior to Kii, he managed the Intellisync business in Japan for many kinds of data synchronization server and client software. Before Intellisync, he served as product manager and design manager at IBM Corporation and IBM Japan in business line management, architecture, and system design group. He earned a bachelor’s degree in applied physics from the University of Tokyo.
Masataka Matsumoto
Director, Chief Strategy Officer
Masataka Matsumoto is Chief Strategy Officer(CSO). In 1999, established the joint venture PIM Corporation, combining four venture companies, and served as its CEO. PIM merged with Yahoo! in 2000 for around 5.4 billion yen. Following the merger, served in the office of the president of Yahoo!, where he promoted investment in Yahoo’s affiliates, and started Yahoo!BB, after which he was assigned to serve as the senior executive manager for Yahoo! Shopping. He was involved in the purchase of Vodafone. Subsequently, he established a mobile business department at Yahoo! Japan, and served as the director of that department, while he was also serving as the general product consumer headquarters manager of SBM. After establishing the Yahoo! Phone, iPhone, and JIL (a joint venture between SBM, Vodaphone, CMCC, and Verizon), he took on the role of general manager of research and development and general manager of FE headquarters in 2008, in the development branch of Yahoo!. In that position, he was responsible for services such as the Top page, EW, Social, and PIM, and managed the front-end development of Yahoo! services. Served as CIO beginning in July 2011. Resigned from Yahoo! and SBM as of the end of August 2012.
Masaru Ohta
CFO, Kii Corp
Masaru Ohta is in charge of finances, and has about 20 years of experience in finance and accounting and over 10 years of experience in private equity investment and capital markets. He is also currently serving executive management to several venture companies as an external board member. Prior to that, he served on the boards of Phoenix Capital, which is one of the largest private equity fund focusing on buyout and business recovery in Japan, where he had led their investment team, invested around JPY32 billion and brought a large amount of capital gain to the investors of the funds and to the company itself. Prior to that, he was employed by Mitsubishi UFJ Capital (predecessor to UFJ Capital), where he was in charge of corporate planning and business administration further to venture investment. He started his career at Pricewaterhouse Coopers for 10 years from 1991 and had experienced various advisory services there. He had been engaged in Audits of Financial Statements of IT and Hi-tech companies for over 4 years and in consulting services, especially Business Process Re-engineering and implementation of ERP software for about 3 years. After that he had been engaged in Financial Advisory Services such as advisory services for M&A for about 3 years. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and is member of the Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Miko Matsumura
Senior Vice President, Media Development
Prior to his current role, Matsumura served as Vice President and Chief Strategist at Software AG, where he was responsible for product and technology strategy. He holds 12 years of experience in Enterprise Software and Middleware technologies. He came to that position through several acquisitions in which he served as vice president of SOA product marketing (at webMethods) and vice president of worldwide marketing (at Infravio). At The Middleware Company, he was a co-author for SOA Blueprints, the first complete vendor-neutral specification of a SOA. This program formed the basis of the SOA Adoption Blueprints Technical Committee at OASIS, an international standards organization. Matsumura is the founder and organizer of the SOA Link Interoperability Initiative. He is also the author of “SOA Adoption for Dummies,” published by John Wiley and Sons. Prior to his work in the SOA space, he was Chief Java Evangelist at Sun Microsystems, focused on ISV relations and technology platform marketing. He has worked extensively with software startup companies, raising more than $12 million in capital for Java startups. Matsumura holds an MBA from San Francisco State University and a master’s degree in neuroscience from Yale University.
Yuan Huntington Weigel
Vice President, Marketing
Yuan Huntington Weigel has over 22 years of experience in product marketing, product management and business development. Previously, Yuan was Vice President of Marketing at Kaazing, a leader in HTML5 WebSocket technology. Before joining Kaazing, she was a Principal and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Exigen Capital, a $660M transformational private equity fund. Prior to joining Exigen, she was Vice President of Worldwide Marketing at NetManage where she was responsible for its marketing and product strategy. She has also held senior positions at various technology companies such as Talkway, WebGain, Broadband Office, and Netscape. Ms. Weigel started her career at Micro Focus where she was a Product Manager. Ms. Weigel holds a BS degree in Managerial Economics from University of California at Davis.
Dominique Tu
Vice President, Greater China
Dominique is a seasoned executive in the mobile and software industries with over 15 years of leadership experience in the Greater China and Asia Pacific. Before joining Kii, Dominique was the founder of iAngel Corp, aimed at providing angel seed funding to early start-ups in Greater China. Prior to iAngel, Dominique was the Director, Business Development & Partner Alliance (Asia) of Nokia Corporation. Dominique served as the Vice President of Sales (Asia) of Intellisync until it acquired by Nokia in 2006 and was the Managing Director (China) of PalmSource Inc., which was acquired by ACCESS in 2004. Before joining PalmSource, Dominique worked in start-up companies including Realvision, Hong Kong (Mobile Hardware, funded by GSM Capital) and PrivyLink, Singapore (Internet Security, funded by TDF Capital) as Director of Sales, Asia. Before moving to the mobile & software industries, Dominique was the Senior Manager, Smart Card & E-Commerce of Standard Chartered Bank (Asia Pacific). Dominique graduated from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and holds a Master Degree in International Business from the Macquarie University, Australia. He is now pursuing his PhD in the Chinese Academy of Science on Mobile Consumer Behavior.
Phani Pandrangi
Vice President, Products
Phani Pandrangi is Vice President of Products at Kii and is in-charge of product vision, management and execution. Previously, Phani was Director of Product Management at Software AG where he was responsible for the webMethods Business Process Management product. Before Software AG, Phani worked in Product Management and Product Development roles at BEA Systems, Plumtree Software, Datasweep and Savvion. Phani holds an MBA from University of California at Berkeley, a Masters in Computer Science from Oregon State University and Bachelors in Computer Science & Engineering from Osmania University.
Joseph Deegan
Vice President, Media Development
Joseph Deegan is Vice President of Media Business Development and works closely with major brands and agencies to help them execute innovative mobile app marketing campaigns. Before joining Kii, Joseph was Vice President of New Business Development at full service agency, Integrated Media Solutions (IMS) where he brought in major brands requiring all forms of interactive advertising (mobile, social media, search, display, email), TV, radio and print media. Before IMS, Joseph was Sr. Director of Global Client Development at full service digital agency, Blast Radius, of the WPP Group. Prior to Blast, Joseph held director level positions developing new business for start-up companies Silver Creek Systems (acquired by Oracle), Antarctica Systems, and PureSpeech (acquired by Philips). Joseph also spent several years in the music industry developing, representing and promoting new artists after receiving his BA in Political Science from DePaul University. Joseph lives in the Chicago area with his wife and three daughters.
