JAMES F. RYAN
Global Markets Boston
MA – USA
Mr. Ryan is a Harvard graduate with 20 years’ experience building markets and sales organizations worldwide. He speaks native Japanese and can also speak Mandarin and French.
He began his career in Japan where he helped build the mobile carrier market for Silicon Valley voice- mail startup Octel, which was acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1997.
He was then hired by startup Excel Switching Corporation to build the Japan and North Asia markets from scratch. Within two years he had grown these markets from zero to $16M. Excel was acquired by Lucent Technologies in 2000 for $1.7B.
Since then, Mr. Ryan has developed the Asia Pacific, EMEA and Japan markets for five more startups, most recently bringing global sales from $10M to $30M in only two years for an Internet video startup.
Mr. Ryan has a Bachelor’s Degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a Master’s Degree in Communication Theory from Osaka University in Japan.
Ming Lu
Greater China and Southeast Asia
Shanghai, China
Mr. Lu has over 25 years of experience building businesses for overseas companies in China. He began his career as a telecommunications engineer with Alcatel before joining US startup Excel Switching Corporation, where he worked together extensively with Farpoint principal James Ryan.
At Excel, Mr. Lu quickly progressed from sales engineer to account executive and finally General Manager of Greater China. As GM, Mr. Lu grew Excel’s sales in China to $10M.
After Excel was acquired by Lucent Technologies in 2000, Mr. Lu remained with Lucent, overseeing their channel sales organization.
Several years ago Mr. Lu founded his own startup company that imports and sells network quality monitoring and management technologies to telecommunications service providers in China. He has grown the company to $12M in sales revenue in 2012.
Yasunori Ohta
Japan
Tokyo, Japan
Mr. Ohta is a graduate of Toyo University and has more than 20 years’ experience in technology, with particular expertise in telecommunications.
He began his career at Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co., where he was in charge of sales of telecom equipment imported from North America and Europe.
In 1997, he established his own startup company, Unified Communications Inc. focusing on providing multivendor telecommunications solutions to service providers and large enterprise, with particular focus on contact center design, implementation and optimization. Unified Communications has served as a distributor and outsourced technical support team for Octel Communications, Excel Switching Corporation, Lucent Technologies, Stratus Computers, Siemens and Telemedia Networks.
Mr. Ohta has worked closely with Farpoint principal James Ryan since 1996.
In addition to importing and integrating products from multiple vendors, Unified also develops its own software products as well as maintaining its own 24 x 7 customer support center.
In 2012, Unified established a subsidiary in Hong Kong as an entry point into the China market.
Dr. Yuki Honjo
Advisor: Financial Analysis
Falmouth, Massachusetts
Yuki Allyson Honjo (D.Phil., Oxford, 2000) is currently Chief Operating Officer of McLane Research Laboratories, Inc.
A former Japanese equity analyst who worked at such Tokyo-based financial institutions as ING Financial Markets, Swiss Re Capital Markets (Japan) Corporation, and Fox-Pitt Kelton (Asia), Dr. Honjo stated her career in analyzing fast moving consumer non-durables and then specialized in Japanese banking and consumer finance. She has also written for various academic conferences and newspapers.
Dr. Honjo hails from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but has spent the better half of her life abroad. Her articles have appeared in the International Herald Tribune, Japan Times, and elsewhere. Dr. Honjo’s comments on Japan are frequently quoted in major publications and newswires such as the New York Times, London Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, The Economist (Japan), Mainichi Shinbun, and Institutional Investor.
Dr. Honjo holds an honors degree in History from Harvard University and a doctorate in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford. She has also studied at the University of Tokyo. She is fluent in Japanese.
Javier Jimenez
Advisor
North and South America
Boston, MA – USA
Mr. Jimenez holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from College of the Air Force, has completed studies towards an MBA through Dowling College, and has also completed executive level courses with Technion in cooperation with Harvard and MIT.
Mr. Jimenez began his career as an electrical engineer in the defence industry working for companies such as Hazeltine Corporation (later acquired by BAE Systems), and AUL Instruments (acquired by Lucas Aerospace). Following Lucas, Mr. Jimenez was hired by Comverse Technology, a worldwide service provider of Core Value Added and Billing Solutions, where he held a variety of management positions in Systems Engineering, Program Management, Channel Management and Executive Management. As Vice President and General Manager of International Markets for Comverse Technology, Mr. Jimenez led an organization that achieved 3-year quadruple revenue growth with record level revenue ($35 Million to $116 Million), and achieved market shares approaching 60% in messaging and 30 – 35% in Billing and Prepaid.
Mr. Jimenez also served as officer and Vice President and General Manager Americas of Blue Phoenix Solutions, a publically traded Software Company that provides Legacy Modernization Services (Software Products, and Professional Services) to Fortune 1000 companies and Government. Prior to Blue Phoenix, Mr. Jimenez was the Founder and CEO of Scientia Network Solutions, a boutique consultancy firm specializing in the introduction of innovative technologies to specific market segments in the United States and Latin America.
Most recently Mr. Jimenez served as Senior Vice President for a late stage start up in the Broadband multi-media caching and Content Delivery Network (CDN) space where the team grew the company from less than $10M to almost $30 Million in sales within two years working together with Farpoint principal James Ryan.