Shunji Hidaka’s Profile

In the first decade of the 2000s, I served as a Corporate Officer at Transcosmos Inc., a company involved in the discovery and business investment of prominent venture firms mainly on the West Coast of the United States, as well as the localisation of their invested subsidiaries in Japan. During my tenure, I was responsible for the business development function in Japan. Particularly, being involved in DoubleClick Japan as a member of the Board of Directors, including the negotiations for the company's stock acquisition by Google, and managing the joint venture (Shockwave Entertainment Inc., a web game company) between Viacom and Transcosmos, have been one of the invaluable experiences that have shaped me into who I am today.

And for over 10 years since 2009, I have served as the Executive Director of the Programmatic Advertising Business Department within the Digital Business Division at Dentsu Inc, Japan's largest advertising agency. Simultaneously, I have been involved in the management of a joint venture between WPP Group and Dentsu, a digital advertising solutions company. Through this experience, I take pride in having gained invaluable insights and accumulating rare knowledge in my career. Notably, what I consider to be the most valuable experience throughout this period of my tenure was that I thoroughly supported the Japan entry of a considerable number of IT/Ad tech ventures from abroad and could witness their growth firsthand.

To demonstrate this, I was able to skillfully cultivate strong and mutually beneficial relationships with various companies during my tenure at Dentsu, even in challenging circumstances, encompassing both foreign 'Gulliver' companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook (currently 'Meta'), AOL ('Verizon Media'), Twitter, Microsoft (or MSN), LINE, and TikTok, as well as domestic companies like Yahoo! Japan and Rakuten. In addition, I can list specific companies as evidence where I have played a “small” part in their growth, such as TheTradeDesk, Buzzfeed, Outbrain, Criteo, Teads, Unruly, Turn, Marin, OpenX, Tubemogul, Pubmatic, MediaMath, Grapeshot, Integral Science, LinkedIn, and many others. Consequently, the various experiences I gained from assisting multiple companies have reshaped my perspective on overseas IT/Ad tech ventures and given me an in-depth understanding of the struggles and challenges faced by a Japan Country Manager more than ever before. By engaging in productive business negotiations and transactions, even in challenging circumstances, with various Gulliver companies and by conducting investigations and evaluations to determine the strengths and weaknesses of venture companies, including startups, I have continuously witnessed both successful and less successful ventures during my tenure at Dentsu. As a result, I have gained a clear understanding of the reasons behind the success or challenges faced by these overseas ventures.

Through these experiences, I finally found myself on the "venture side" in 2020 as a Senior Sales Director at DoubleVerify and in 2021 as a Country Manager at Intelligent Video Smart (currently Showheroes.com). The latter, especially, was a completely new Japanese market entry company from scratch, so I utilised my previous experiences from both directions to the fullest in my role as a country manager. Due to the NDA with these companies respectively, I am unable to disclose specific details such as the names and number of the brands, revenue based on sales, or the amount of acquired online advertising inventory. However, in both cases, with the limited resources of myself and a small team, we achieved quantifiable and highly satisfactory results within a short period of 10 to 18 months for each company. I would like to emphasise that we successfully developed accounts (both advertisers and media companies) for top-tier national brands and prominent media companies in Japan or globally.

Currently, I am working as a hands-on consultant for global ad tech ventures launching their businesses in Japan, accelerating customer development, sales leadership, and marketing PR activities. My team is comprised of vastly experienced professionals who have held key positions such as Country Manager, Head of Marketing, and Sales Lead in the aforementioned companies. Our specialists were at the forefront when many of these companies were first introduced in Japan, and they possess the knowledge and expertise to effectively launch your products & services and accelerate your marketing efforts, allowing your Japan team to concentrate on driving the business or closing deals in Japan.

＊For more detailed information about our services, please refer to the link ☞