Pacifica Fund | General Partners

Himanshu Choksi

Yukio Okamoto

Tim Oren

Mochio Umeda

Yukio Okamoto

Yukio Okamoto is the founder and president of Okamoto Associates, Inc., of Tokyo, Japan, a strategic and business consulting firm to Japanese multinationals and government affiliated agencies. Mr. Okamoto has a decade's worth of experience as an international management consultant. He served for 23 years in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, where his final position was the Director of the North American Affairs Division. In 1991, he left to found Okamoto Associates, Inc. Since July 1998, Mr. Okamoto has also been serving as the Advisor to the Japan Foundation and to the Science and Technology Agency.

Okamoto Associates, Inc. (OAI) provides consulting services focused on helping international corporations and organizations make decisions on foreign investment, transnational mergers & acquisitions, technology sharing and business culture issues. With an extensive network of contacts throughout the Japanese and international governmental, political, media, entrepreneurial and large corporate community, OAI advances a client's business activities while preserving its independent judgment, being at once partner, advisor and advocate.

Areas of OAI expertise include:

Corporate networking with small clusters of Asian opinion makers and executives with influence on corporate decisions, the general business climate and industry regulation.
Leveraging existing client corporate resources and know-how into new sources of revenue and new opportunities in Asia.
Bringing together American and Asian companies into mutually suitable partnerships from the initial search to final negotiations and agreement.
Advising clients on essential developments within Japanese public sector and politics.
Investigation and assessment of specific industries or companies within Japan and East Asia.

From December 1996 to March 1998, Mr. Okamoto was Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, the highest-ranking advisory position a civilian can hold in the Japanese government. His portfolio was on Okinawa.

While in service in the both North American and Security Divisions of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Okamoto was a main participant in the negotiations over Japanese participation in the Strategic Defense Initiative and Japan-U.S. military technology transfer. He maintains close ties to the high technology defense communities both in Japan and the United States.

Mr. Okamoto sits on a number of corporate boards, including Asahi Breweries, Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, Tokai-Maruman Securities, and Tomo-Digi (Digital TV Broadcasting), and on the external advisory boards of NTT DoCoMo and Toshiba.

Well-versed in economic and government policy debates, Mr. Okamoto is a familiar figure both within Japan and within the U.S. government. He is a frequent contributor to leading Japanese newspapers and magazines and is an oft-quoted source for U.S. media. Mr. Okamoto is a graduate of Hitotsubashi University.