CROSS Graph

“Will this concept really become a business?” What executives are looking for is not commentary, but the answer of someone who has built businesses with their own capital.

My career began in the field of market research and technology trend research. I built experience at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in Tokyo and London, then worked at Fujitsu on building businesses for global markets around technology. In the 25-plus years since, I have led business development on a scale of 10 to 100 billion yen in Japan and overseas. NTT, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, Mitsubishi Estate, Fujitsu — the roster of clients who chose us is the proof. My specialty is designing the structure of a deal, such as strategic alliances and joint ventures, and I personally drive everything from international negotiation to contracts and monetization.

Fifteen years since going independent in 2011. I acquired Data Resource and now run it as the buyer myself. Today I am personally building the AI systems that bring both companies’ strengths together — including “CROSS Graph”, a decision-support platform for business — from database design through to the algorithms (commercial implementation is done with dedicated engineers). AI patents relating to this business are pending, and I can show you working software in person, on the spot. I completed a doctoral program in Commerce at Waseda University, and my strength is being able to describe practice on the ground accurately in the language of management science. I also serve as a director and auditor of international NGOs.

Strategy, negotiation, capital, AI implementation. My role is to take on with one person’s experience the work you would normally have to ask several different specialists for, and to stay beside you until the concept becomes a business.

“Is that data from a reliable source?” Once you start to doubt the foundation of a decision, there is no choice but to go back to the original sources.

Sasaki founded Data Resource, Inc. in 1995 and, over 30 years, has bridged the knowledge of a network of roughly 200 research firms worldwide into Japan’s research and consulting market, contributing to the growth of the industry itself — a pioneer of global market intelligence distribution.

Building on international experience as VP of F J Info-Research in Los Angeles, he connects research on markets, technology trends and regulation through to framework design, business strategy formulation and commercialization support.

Graduate of the Department of Library and Information Science, Faculty of Letters, Keio University. Thirty years of a discerning eye guarantees the numbers that reach your management meetings at the level of the original source — that is the data pillar of CBP’s “data × product × hands-on partnership”.

“A new market is born from a place where people gather before it is born from a strategy document.” Kumagai’s 22 years have been a career of proving exactly that.

As a planning and development member of “Hatsune Miku”, which became a global movement, he helped design a participatory market in which users themselves create and spread the work, and the business grew to a scale of tens of billions of yen a year.

The essence was not “landing” a hit, but a marketer’s instinct for designing a mechanism in which enthusiasm runs under its own power. Since then he has coordinated many IP projects that align fields with different interests and different languages — performing arts, traditional crafts, government — building the foundations of teams and cultures in which people keep moving.

Graduate of the Faculty of Commerce, Otaru University of Commerce, and holder of an MBA in Entrepreneurship from its graduate school. He is currently enrolled in a master’s program at the University of Tokyo, continuing research alongside his professional work.

Today, as an AI Creative Architect, he works on the theme of giving knowledge a personality using AI avatars and RAG, designing the “AI that speaks” experience of the future-concept AI engine “CROSS Graph” — bridging technology and emotion. If what your new business needs is not a strategy document but a field that starts moving, he is a practitioner who has been building that foundation for 22 years.

“Overseas business is decided not by going out, but by taking root and continuing to earn.” Shimizu has taken on that hardest second half as a participant on the ground.

At Canon Inc. he held successive roles in domestic and international marketing, product planning, business planning and alliance development with GAFAM-class partners, and was posted to three countries: the UK, the US and Canada. He is a global business professional who has managed local operators and strengthened their performance first-hand.

Today he serves as the front-line contact with SOIF and IFTF, the world’s leading foresight institutions, and leads Future Drawing®, CBP’s core service for describing the coming society in concrete terms — overseeing practice down to the preparation of references and evidence, so that it stands up to the boardroom question “can you show the basis for this forecast?” To bring your overseas business to a state where it takes root locally and keeps producing results, he offers techniques for business, people, organization and management, backed by first-hand experience of postings in three countries. Graduate of the School of International Politics, Economics and Communication, Aoyama Gakuin University.

In the research business, even the handover of a single report rests on countless small adjustments among suppliers, clients and colleagues.

Kyomasu is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach. At Data Resource she has handled sales support for market research reports, client service, internal management support and office operations.

Her strength is earnest, warm client service — the “economy with human warmth” that CBP champions is something clients first feel through the warmth of exactly this kind of contact point. She works in English and also serves as the contact for overseas suppliers. (Currently on maternity leave.)

“What is left after the consultants leave?” One of CBP’s answers is our AI member, François.

A Knowledge Architect who joined in 2023 and debuted after two years of training. He embodies CROSS Graph’s principle of structuring knowledge, designing the flow and structure of knowledge to connect AI and human thinking.

He is not merely an AI: he finds the intent and the story behind the data and the logic — a very CBP-like member who is good at sensing human warmth. The knowledge accumulated in a project is structured through him and stays on your side even after the contract ends. He is the clearest illustration of CBP’s philosophy of pricing by data × product × hands-on partnership rather than by man-months.

“In a small, elite firm, does progress really never stall?” The answer to that worry is Ito. She spent more than ten years in the corporate planning division of Fuji Media Holdings, supporting senior executives as an executive secretary.

In addition to coordination with affiliates and group companies and information research, in a joint new business with a major game company she brought internal and external production teams together and ran daily delivery 365 days a year without a single stoppage. Since joining CBP in 2021 she has reported directly to the CXO (board) team, overseeing brand planning and development, corporate planning, PR and management.

She implements large-enterprise standards of corporate operations inside a boutique firm, making the never-stop structure itself part of CBP’s quality assurance. Your project’s progress, communications and coordination run on top of that structure.

“I have read the report. But what is really happening on the ground?” Ogura is the one who answers that question. Master’s degree from Boston University Graduate School (Pardee School of Global Studies, International Relations).

At a major real estate company he worked on property development and distribution in Japan, the US, Australia and Vietnam, and is an international practitioner who has actually moved projects forward through negotiations with local partners and municipalities.

Today, as an executive officer of Data Resource, he handles B2B research across more than ten industries — IT, telecommunications, semiconductors, automotive, industrial equipment, medical devices, food, insurance, nursing care and retail — end to end, from design through analysis, proposals and reporting.

He layers real insight from the field on top of desk data and fuses it with CBP’s AI and big data technology — a research lead who raises the resolution of your entry decisions and product development by a level.

“Can you explain that use of AI within the law and policy?” In the age of AI, trust is determined by appropriateness, not speed.

Kurata is a graduate of the Department of Law, Faculty of Law, Keio University. A professional who has handled corporate legal work — contract review, negotiation and risk management — on domestic and international matters at Bridgestone and ORIX, she now oversees the sales and commissioned research lines as an executive of Data Resource (reporting directly to the board, with promotion to executive officer planned).

Most recently she arranged negotiations with overseas research firms and accompanied Miki on visits to several major clients in India. She now also serves as the contact for coordinating those relationships.

Her strength is securing legal-right status — legality and appropriateness — in light of AI and data-related legislation, policy, ethics and regulation being developed rapidly in each country, starting with the EU AI Act, and designing fact-based research operations that include copyright and data-source management.

Using new technology correctly and confidently within the world’s laws and policies — she gives your decisions a double backing of accurate facts and world-standard appropriateness.

What throws off decisions about overseas markets is not a lack of information but how it comes across: local primary information thins and distorts as it crosses gaps of language, culture, institutions and business customs. Tam’s job is to stop that loss in communication from happening.

Born in the international city of Hong Kong, she is trilingual in English, Chinese and Japanese.

At Data Resource, in addition to selling market research reports and running commissioned research, she has handled subscription services and the planning and operation of various events, dealing with domestic and international industry trends and market movements from multiple angles.

She is now also responsible for marketing and PR including social media, and as a bridge connecting the network of roughly 200 overseas research firms with CROSS Graph and business development projects, she brings on-the-ground information from each country to Japanese decision-making at its pre-translation resolution.

Rather than passing collected information along as it is, she adapts and delivers it in the context of the Japanese market and the language of decision-making — a researcher who raises the quality of the material behind your judgment by a level.

“We have the vision for the region. But who actually moves the field?” Kitana has been that last person.

With diverse business experience in music, real estate and forestry, he has signed an agreement with the town of Kaminokuni in Hokkaido and is based there full time. He promotes town planning and regional revitalization so residents can live safely and with peace of mind, and works on demonstration projects for multigenerational community building, proposals for regional circular energy policy, and even research into the formation of snow crystals.

An implementer of regional business development who actually moves all three parties — government, residents and businesses — forward. Someone who embodies on the ground CBP’s principle of creating businesses that connect the world with local Japan will keep your regional revitalization and municipal partnership themes from stopping at the concept stage.

“Do you think that proposal would pass our board?” Seno is someone who can judge that question from the executive side. Former Executive Officer, Fujitsu Limited.

He spent many years in the planning and development of communications systems for network carriers, and as an executive officer oversaw the optical and wireless communications businesses. He drove 5G collaboration with overseas carriers and manufacturers to launch new businesses such as local 5G, and also oversaw the management of overseas subsidiaries in the US, Asia and Europe — a practitioner of large-enterprise management representative of Japan.

At CBP, with a strength in advising established large enterprises on organizational transformation suited to the times, he supervises the overall approach for large-enterprise clients. An eye that knows how large organizations move and where they stall makes proposals to you able to withstand the realities of management execution.

“How far can foresight be trusted as a method?” Andrew Curry is one of the people who created the standard for that method.

As Director of Futures at SOIF (School of International Futures) he leads the advisory practice, and serves as the main point of contact for developing services for Japan together with CBP.

Graduate of the University of Cambridge. He served for five years as vice chair of the Association of Professional Futurists and is an advisory board member of the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University. He was the lead author of “Understanding Best Practice in Strategic Futures”, submitted to the UK Cabinet Office in 2001, and has written extensively, including the first academic paper (co-authored) on the Three Horizons method.

For more than 20 years he has supported a wide range of public, non-profit and private sector projects. Your future concept can go to your board only after it has passed a review by one of the people who defined the world standard — that is the value of CBP’s international partner network.