Kei co-founded Venture Republic Inc., that owns and runs Japan’s largest online travel search engine «Travel.jp» and hotel review search «Hotel.jp.» As CEO, he took the company public in 2008 (2177. JASDAQ) after 7 years of operation. Over the last 13 years, Kei has built the various successful online vertical media including «Travel.jp,» «Hotel.jp,» and «coneco.net». While running the company, he serves as an active investor and board member of various travel/ecommerce startups in the world including flocations in Singapore and Telunjuk in Indonesia.
A seasoned executive with his extensive knowledge of online travel, e-commerce and his strong entrepreneurship, Kei is responsible for driving the company by shaping its strategy, making commercialization efforts and building organization. Previously, Kei worked at Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan’s leading trading & investment firm, for 11 years. During his time with the company, among other roles, he played the key role in company’s largest M&A deal in its history to acquire the Lawson Inc., one of the largest convenience store chains in Japan and led the company’s joint e-commerce businesses with Lawson to pursue its post acquisition strategy. Kei received a BA of Laws from Keio University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
He also serves as co-founder/organizer of WIT (Web in Travel) Japan, President of Venture Mitakai, an official Keio University’s alumni association for CEOs of venture businesses and Executive Committee Member of HBS Club of Japan (Harvard Business School’s alumni association in Japan) and a member of Japan Association of Corporate Executives «Keizai Doyukai.» In this interview.
Kei shares his vision with Javier González-Soria about the role and future of travel metasearches and gives very valuable insights
