Session Speakers | SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026

Eric Benhamou Benhamou Global Ventures
Founder & General Partner

■ Career

Eric Benhamou has over 40 years of experience in the IT industry, including 16 years in venture capital. He founded Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV) in 2004, investing in early-stage Silicon Valley startups in enterprise and telecom sectors. His notable investments include Swan Labs (F5), Dasient (Twitter), and Voltaire (Mellanox). He currently serves on the boards of Grid Dynamics, Virtana, and Totango. As former CEO and Chairman of 3Com and Palm, he grew 3Com’s revenue 25-fold and led it into the Fortune Global 500. Throughout his career, he has participated in eight IPOs and 37 M&A transactions.

Rob Freelen Sozo Ventures
Managing Director & Investing Partner

■ Career

Rob Freelen is currently Managing Director and investing partner at Sozo Ventures. He is also a co-founder of LA-based FinTech company, Turbine Finance, a former SVB executive, and a Kauffman Fellow (Class 29).

Currently Rob serves on the boards of Carbon Robotics, Haus Labs by Lady Gaga, Mercy Bioanalytics, Turbine Finance, and Atomic Machines.

Immediately prior to joining Sozo Rob helped co-found Turbine Finance and before that was Silicon Valley Bank's Head of Venture Capital Relationship Management where he served as the bank's principal advisor to SVB Capital’s Fund-of-Funds and primary relationship manager for many of the top US Venture Capital firms. During his SVB career Rob led teams in both healthcare and technology, opened the Santa Monica office, led the Los Angeles region to record growth/profit, helped reorganize the sales organization as Chief of Staff, and did deals with hundreds of technology companies that accounted for hundreds of millions in loans and billions in deposits.

Rob has a B.A. in Psychology from Whitman College and has lectured at UCLA, USC, and Stanford on venture capital and venture lending.

Ashley Grosh Breakthrough Energy
Vice President

■ Career

Ashley has spent the entirety of her nearly two-decade career working at the intersection of finance and climate innovation. Prior to joining Breakthrough Energy as a Vice President to lead the Breakthrough Energy Discovery program, she spent 15 years at Wells Fargo as a thought leader working across several business units, supporting overall ESG, Cleantech Commercial Banking, and Sustainable Finance strategies. At Wells she pioneered a $100 million impact fund called the Innovation Incubator (IN2), focused on speeding up the path to market for early-stage clean technologies. IN2 program’s 74 portfolio companies have gone on to raise $2.6B in follow on funding from external sources.
Today, Ashley leads Breakthrough Energy Discovery, an early-stage global platform advancing climate technology innovation and research. Discovery focuses on pre-venture innovation—filling critical scientific gaps where new solutions can deliver outsized impact across five grand challenge areas: Agriculture, Manufacturing, Buildings, Electricity, and Transportation.
Through its three core programs—Fellows, Workshops, and Ecosystems—Discovery provides funding, tailored technical and company building support, and connections across a global network to help innovators turn bold ideas into scalable solutions. Since its launch in 2021, the program has supported 180 Fellows across 80 companies in 19 countries, catalyzing more than $475M in follow-on capital and creating over 550 jobs.
In this role, Ashley continues to build deep connections across the clean tech ecosystem—working with investors, entrepreneurs, universities, incubators, and national labs to drive transformative innovation.
Grosh earned a B.A. degree in Economics and a Business minor from the University of Colorado at Boulder, as a student athlete on the CU NCAA Division One women’s soccer team. She holds a Certified Financial Planning certificate from DePaul University and a Renewable Energy Certificate from Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder.
In 2017, Grosh was recognized as a ’40 Under 40’ winner in Colorado and also recognized that year as a ‘Top Women in Energy’ in the Denver Business Journal.
Ashley and her family reside in Chicago, Illinois. Outside of work, she enjoys playing racquet sports, cooking, and cheering on her children at their sporting events.

Simon Hirtzel IQ Capital
GP & COO

■ Career

Simon is a General Partner and Chief Operating Officer of IQ Capital. He participates in the development and execution of strategy, responsible for the management of IQ Capital’s operations, and in communications with investors and providing deal-level support to IQ’s portfolio companies.

Simon has over 30 years of management and financial experience. Prior to joining IQ Capital, he was general partner and COO at Kreos Capital, the pioneer European growth debt provider which grew to over £1bn of assets under management, investing over €2.5bn in some 600 investments in 16 countries.

Previously he was group CFO of the PA Group, a $500m global consulting and technology business with strong focus on commercialising tech spin-offs. Before PA, Simon worked in professional services, including Arthur Andersen in London and Frankfurt. Simon has an MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.

Kentaro Kawabe LY Corporation
Chairperson and Representative Director

■ Career

Kentaro Kawabe founded the venture companies Dennotai and PIM while studying at university. After PIM merged with Yahoo Japan, he joined Yahoo Japan in 2000. He led key services such as “Yahoo! JAPAN Mobile,” “Yahoo! JAPAN News,” and social contribution projects. Kawabe became President and CEO of GYAO in 2009, COO of Yahoo Japan in 2012, and its President and CEO in 2018, also serving as a Director of SoftBank Corp. Following Yahoo Japan’s transition to a holding company structure in 2019, he was appointed President and CEO of Z Holdings and Yahoo Japan. He later joined the boards of ZOZO and SoftBank Group. In April 2023, he became Chairman of Z Holdings, and in October, following a group reorganization, he assumed his current position as Chairperson and Representative Director, LY Corporation (to present).

Hiroaki Kitano Sony Computer Science Laboratories Inc.
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate School(OIST)
President & CEO / Professor

■ Career

President and CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc. (Sony CSL), and Professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST). Kitano joined Sony CSL as a researcher in 1993 and has served as President and CEO since 2011. He served as Chief Technology Officer of Sony Group Corporation from 2022 to 2024 and has been Chief Technology Fellow since 2025.

As a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, Kitano built large-scale data-driven AI systems on massively parallel computers, for which he received the Computers and Thought Award from IJCAI. At Sony CSL and California Institute of Technology, he pioneered the field of systems biology.

Yutaka Matsuo Department of Technology Management for Innovation
Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo
Professor

■ Career

Graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1997 and earned a Ph.D. in Engineering in 2002. He has held research positions at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and served as a visiting researcher at Stanford University. Since 2007, he has been an associate professor, and since 2019, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering. His research specializes in artificial intelligence, deep learning, and web mining. He has served as the chairman of the Japan Deep Learning Association since 2017, an outside director of SoftBank Group Corporation since 2019, an expert member of the Council for Achieving New Capitalism and the chair of the AI Strategy Conference since 2023, the chair of the AI Institutional Study Group since 2024, and a board director of the AI Robot Association since 2024, Chairperson, Tokyo AI Strategy Council, Tokyo Metropolis since 2024, an outside director of Panasonic Holdings Corporation since 2025, and an expert member of Council for Japan’s Growth Strategy since 2025.

Michael Phillips Alumni Ventures
COO & CLO

■ Career

Michael G. Phillips (MGP) has led legal and business teams across a range of organizations—from startups to large financial services firms. He currently advises on strategic initiatives for the firm’s Board and Executive Committee and leads operations as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer of Alumni Ventures.
Previously, he helped build and expand TIAA/Nuveen’s asset management business to over $900 billion in AUM (2017), creating and distributing alternative investment products across the U.S. and internationally to retail, institutional, and high-net-worth clients.

MGP brings over 25 years of experience in law and financial services, including roles at major U.S. law firms and diversified financial firms. He is a CFA Charterholder and a former U.S. Army Lieutenant.
He earned a BA in English from Dartmouth, a JD from William & Mary, an LLM in Taxation from Villanova, and an MBA in Finance from Wharton.

Masaru Sakamoto Benhamou Global Ventures
Partner

■ Career

Masaru (Mas) Sakamoto has been with BGV since 2018 and currently serves as a Partner.

He is a seasoned professional with a diverse background in international business development, strategic planning, venture capital investment, new business incubation, and cross-border operations. Mas has had a long-standing association with NEC Corporation, where he served in various leadership roles, including Group Vice President of the Solutions Business Group, Vice President of Corporate Planning & Marketing and Assistant General Manager. Among others, served on the board of Vidient Systems, Inc. and Niteo Partners, and during this time at NEC, Mas was involved in The Open Group and The Enterprise Network, both non-profit organizations.

Mas’ extensive experience includes key advisory roles and affiliations with Bay Angels, YNext Incubator, Plug & Play and Alchemist Accelerator in collaboration with the J-Startup program (a Japanese government-initiated incubation program). Mas is also an angel investor, with startup companies that include Invia Robotics, Marble Robot, Glydways, Mission Barns, Aikon, OhmniLabs, Copado, SKUChain, LUUM, Genia, Ekso Bionics, and others.

Mas currently serves as advisor to several Japanese companies and has been a frequent guest lecturer at Kyoto University, Aoyama Gakuin University, UC Berkeley, and NYU. Mas also served on the board and Secretary of Harvard Business School Association of Northern California.

Mas has a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Economics from Keio University in Japan and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mas is an avid tennis player, and after 24 years in Silicon Valley, he currently resides in Southern California covering the region for new startups.

Masami Takahashi Scrum Ventures
General Partner & COO

■ Career

Masami Takahashi joined Scrum Ventures in 2021 as President of Scrum Studio to lead its business incubation platform, and became Group COO in 2023. Previously, Masami served as General Manager and later as Chief Strategy Officer at WeWork Japan from 2017, where he spearheaded its business launch and expansion, opening over 30 locations in 6 cities in the first 2 years. Prior to WeWork, he led Uber’s business in Japan as President and launched Uber Eats in Tokyo. He started his career as a marketer at Sony in Tokyo and Paris, and later worked in the San Francisco Bay Area, sourcing opportunities for investment and acquisition. Masami earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from INSEAD.

Christine Tsai 500 Global
CEO & Founding Partner

■ Career

Christine Tsai co-founded 500 Global in 2010, and led the firm’s growth over the past decade from a startup accelerator to a multi-stage venture capital firm with $2.4B in assets under management, and investments in more than 2,900 companies in 80+ countries. 500 Global regularly ranks as one of the most active venture capital firms in the world, according to PitchBook, with a top number of exits. The firm’s diversified portfolio includes over 35 companies valued at more than $1B, such as Talkdesk, Canva, Carbon Health, and GitLab. Private Equity International has named Christine one of 10 Women of Influence in venture capital.

She currently serves on the venture capital committee of the Association of Asian American Investment Managers, and is an active member of the Young Presidents’ Organization. Christine is also an honoree of Gold House’s 2021 A100 List, recognizing the most impactful Asian and Pacific Islander leaders across business and technology, entertainment, advocacy and politics, lifestyle, and sports.

Prior to founding 500 Global, she held product marketing and operating roles at Google, focusing primarily on monetization and developer products such as Google AdSense, Google Analytics, YouTube APIs and syndication, and Google Developer Platform Tools.

Christine holds a B.A. in Cognitive Science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Miki Tsusaka Microsoft Japan Co., Ltd.
Representative Director and President

■ Career

Miki Tsusaka is the Representative Director and President of Microsoft Japan. Under her leadership, she focuses on enabling the acceleration of Japan's digital transformation through Microsoft’s global and local expertise of our leading productivity and platform solutions. She will also build and reinforce Microsoft’s reputation in Japan as a trusted partner for individuals, organizations, and governments.
She is a former Senior Partner and Managing Director at Boston Consulting Group.
Tsusaka holds a Bachelor of AB from Harvard, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She was recognized by Fortune as among the 100 most powerful women in the world and in Asia in 2024.

Chris Wade Isomer Capital
Co-Founder & Partner

■ Career

As the co-founder and Partner of Isomer Capital, Chris co-leads fund investments and leads Isomer's co-investment program. In addition, he leads Japanese and Korean LP relationships and Isomer's corporate investor program. Before Isomer, he was a venture partner at Octopus Ventures, leading Asian business development and during the inception of Entrepreneur First. He is an active value-added non-executive director and has mentored 20 companies to successful seed funding. Chris co-founded Cambridge Positioning Systems, which was sold to a global semiconductor firm in 2007, before which he worked for 15 years in technology operations at US-based DSC, where he assisted in its $4bn sale to Alcatel and 14 years at North American-based Nortel.

Mehran Zaker Emerald Technology Ventures
Partner

■ Career

Mehran Zaker is a Partner at Emerald Technology Ventures. Based in the Zurich office, he is focusing on Industrial AI, Automation, Robotics and Mobility. He is involved in all phases of the investment process from origination through, diligence, company building and the exit process. Prior to joining Emerald, he has held various positions in the automotive and the construction industries. At Valeo France, as software developer and project leader, he led development of cutting-edge technologies for electric cars and autonomous driving solutions. At Hilti AG, as global product manager, he was part of the fastest growing segment within the power tools business unit where he witnessed closely the digital transformation if this highly “un-digitized” industry. He is a firm believer in transformational power of technology and enjoys turning complex technical concepts into business opportunities.

Mehran has an Electronics engineering degree from ENSEA in France and an MBA from INSEAD