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Hiroshi Menjo co-founded NetService Ventures Group in 2002. He brings more than 20 years of experience in management consulting and business development to the company and the VC fund. He has been working very closely with the top managements of major Japanese companies in the telecom, electronics, and IT areas.
He also co-founded JAIC-McKenna eBusiness Partners (JMeP), a Silicon Valley-based early stage venture capital fund. It is co-managed with Japan Asia Investment Corporation, one of Japan’s largest VC firms. Two of the JMeP investors Hiroshi invited to join the fund are founding families of internationally renowned multi-ten-billion-dollar companies. Some of the portfolio companies are: Magink, cDream, Verimatrix, Ensure, WideRay, and Atrua. Major venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital, VantagePoint Venture Partners, and Nokia Ventures have also invested in these companies in later financing rounds.
Previously, Hiroshi was a Partner with The McKenna Group, a premier high-tech consulting firm founded by Regis McKenna, and was responsible for running the Japan practice. In this position, he started the practice almost from scratch and grew it to a multi-million-dollar consulting concern. He established his reputation in Japan as an innovation expert based on his deep understanding of entrepreneurism in Silicon Valley. His consulting activities have led to his developing an extensive personal network in Japan that includes major telecom companies, electronics companies, consumer electronics companies, systems firms, and trading houses. Among his past clients are NTT, NTT East/West, NTT Communications, NTT Data, NTT DoCoMo, NTT America, Sony, Matsushita Electric (Panasonic), Toshiba, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Casio, Fuji Xerox, KonicaMinolta, Asahi Glass, Mitsubishi Corporation, etc.
Before joining The McKenna Group, Hiroshi was a Partner in AZCA Inc., a consulting firm in Silicon Valley. There, he assisted a variety of North American high-tech venture start-ups with the development and implementation of Japan market entry strategies, as well as strategic alliances with Japanese companies. He also assisted Japanese clients with the development of international market strategies for North American markets. In addition, he helped these clients identify new technology areas for investment, strategic alliances, and technology transfers. Some of the technologies he introduced to Japan have become the core businesses in the market: Ballard Power Systems, the world leader of fuel cell technologies, which Daimler-Chrysler later decided to apply to their future ZEVs; Texas Instrument’s DLP (digital light processing) technologies, which are now widely used for projection displays; CFM’s ultra-precision cleaning technologies for semiconductor processing; and Raychem’s intelligent polymer technologies.
Prior to AZCA, Hiroshi was with the Boston Consulting Group. Based out of the Tokyo office, he worked with U.S. and European clients as well as Japanese high-tech companies to develop strategies for both market entry and market creation. Hiroshi was also heavily involved in advising business strategies for the IT industry. He assisted a number of US and European clients as well, in assessing market opportunities in emerging Asian markets. In recognition of his pioneering work in Japan on their behalf, BCG awarded him a special recognition.
Before joining the Boston Consulting Group, Hiroshi spent nine years at Konica Corporation in Tokyo. There, he worked as a member of the Senior Research Staff, obtaining 12 patents for the company in the area of color photography. By the early 80’s, he had already predicted that the digital technology would take over the photography business. Based on this insight, he pioneered electronic device research and helped found the company’s Electronic Material R&D Laboratory. In addition, he developed active matrix liquid crystal displays based on novel thin film device technologies.
He has been a guest lecturer/speaker for various universities and business organizations, such as Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, Keio University, Consulate General of Japan, Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), World Affairs Council, NTT, Fujitsu, and Seiko, to name a few. He has contributed numerous articles to a number of Japanese business journals and magazines. He also co-authored several books in Japan, two of which became best selling books in the business field. He has also directed a series of TV programs titled, “Silicon Valley Report,” by collaborating with Ken-ichi Ohmae.
He was on the advisory board of the Carlyle Group and helped them establish their buyout fund’s activities in Japan. The Carlyle Group is one of the most powerful buyout funds in the world. Other members of the advisory group in Japan were Yoshihiko Miyauchi, CEO of Orix Group, Naoyuki Akikusa, Chairman of Fujitsu, Takeo Shiina, former Chairman/CEO of IBM Japan, Taizo Nishimuro, former Chairman of Toshiba and Vice Chairman of Keidanren (Japan Federation of Economic Organization).
Hiroshi personally assisted Japanese House Representative, Hakuo Yanagisawa, former Minister of Financial Reconstruction and Minister of Finance, in meeting privately with top financial figures such as the Chairman of Federal Reserve Bank, and the Vice Chairman of Bank of America.
In 2003, Hiroshi was also appointed to be a special advisor to Ambassador of Japan, Ryozo Kato, on various economic issues on behalf of the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area.
He is an advisor to a number of startups, professional firms, and other organizations: JETRO (Japanese governmental organization), PacificVision Partners (consulting firm), Global Alliance Partners (consulting firm), RealCom (startup in Japan), Info Plant (startup in Japan), Net Learning (startup in Japan), and SVJEN (Silicon Valley Japanese Entrepreneurs Network, a non-profit organization).
Hiroshi holds a B.S. in Chemistry, and M.S. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Tokyo. He also earned a M.S. in Electronic Materials from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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