Silicon Foundry, a Kearney company, is an innovation advisory firm that catalyzes opportunities and accelerates change to push the frontier of what's possible.

We help our Members navigate new technologies and market shifts, discover and engage with key emerging leaders, and unlock high-impact customer, partnership, investment, co-creation, and acquisition opportunities. Our Members represent a diverse spectrum of corporations from across the globe, such as BP Innovation, NatWest, UPS, SK Innovation, Honda Innovations, the State of Michigan, and Southwest Airlines, and many more. Learn more at

Job Description
Silicon Foundry, a Kearney company, Principal, San Francisco
Who We Are
Silicon Foundry, a Kearney company, is an innovation advisory firm that catalyzes opportunities and accelerates change to push the frontier of what's possible.

We help our Members navigate new technologies and market shifts, discover and engage with key emerging leaders, and unlock high-impact customer, partnership, investment, co-creation, and acquisition opportunities. Our Members represent a diverse spectrum of corporations from across the globe, such as BP Innovation, NatWest, UPS, SK Innovation, Honda Innovations, the State of Michigan, and Southwest Airlines, and many more. Learn more at

About Kearney
Kearney is a leading global management consulting firm. For nearly 100 years, we have been a trusted advisor to C-suites, government bodies, and nonprofit organizations. Our people make us who we are. Driven to be the difference between a big idea and making it happen, we help our clients break through. To learn more about Kearney, please visit

What We're Looking For
We are hiring our first Principal in Japan, who will play a foundational role in building and growing our presence in the region. This individual will be tasked with identifying and unlocking opportunities, developing a robust regional network, and driving Member relationships while scaling our business in Japan.

As part of Silicon Foundry's growth strategy, this role will leverage Kearney's well-established regional presence, while building strong ties and collaboration with Kearney's teams to ensure mutual success. The ideal candidate will have deep awareness of the Japanese market, proven experience in new business development, and an exceptional network of corporate, startup, and investment community connections to draw upon.

Who You Are

• You are well-connected and have deep relationships across industries, including corporates, startups, and VCs in Japan.
• You understand the dynamics and opportunities in the Japanese market and can quickly navigate new ecosystems to identify key players and emerging trends.
• You are a builder – entrepreneurial, adaptable, and eager to establish and scale a new market presence.
• You are able to leverage Kearney's resources and navigate its network, while proactively identifying opportunities for Silicon Foundry's unique value proposition.
• You have the ability to quickly grasp emerging technologies, product trends, cultural shifts, changing market dynamics, and understand how they can evolve, create opportunities, and shape the future.
• You have new business development experience and are excited at the prospect of leveraging your network and the relationships of our firm to surface and land new Members.
• You are able to form thoughtful and considered perspectives on a breadth and depth of topics, supported by both objective evidence and strategic conviction.
• You have exceptional communication (both English and Japanese), relationship-building, and cross-cultural collaboration skills to succeed in a global organization.
• You are curious and see incredible value in having exposure to a variety of senior-level stakeholders, experts, and thought leaders — corporations, startups, VCs — across the venture and corporate innovation ecosystems.
• You are empathetic, self-aware, and able to build strong relationships based on trust with both internal and external stakeholders.

What You'll Do

• Market Expansion: Build and execute a strategy for growing Silicon Foundry's presence in Japan, identifying and unlocking opportunities.
• Kearney Collaboration: Leverage Kearney's established reputation and relationships in Japan to accelerate growth while cultivating strong internal ties with their teams.
• Network Development: Proactively expand relationships with corporate executives, startup founders, VCs, and other key players in the Japanese innovation ecosystem.
• Business Development: Use your market awareness and network to surface and close new business, establishing Silicon Foundry as a trusted innovation advisor in Japan.
• Member Success: Drive impact for Members by identifying high-value connections, sourcing startups, orchestrating briefings, and creating actionable insights.
• Thought Leadership: Bring knowledge of Japanese market trends and opportunities to the broader Silicon Foundry and Kearney teams.
• Mentoring: Mentor and guide more junior members of the team, providing critical feedback on work deliverables and guiding their professional growth at the firm.
• Platform development: Support internal initiatives to help us improve and scale internal operations and build our brand externally, e.g., through contributing to thought leadership and helping orchestrate external events.

Desired Skills

• Deep connections in Japan across corporate, startup, and venture ecosystems.
• Fluent in English and Japanese
• 5-10+ years of proven performance in business or corporate development, venture capital, investment banking, or strategy consulting-type roles
• Experience in prospecting and selling to enterprise clients (ideally for professional services companies)
• Fundamental passion for and broad knowledge of the technology industry
• Comfortable navigating the corporate hallways while in parallel being highly embedded in the startup, venture capital, and influencer communities
• Born to serve, astute at building relationships, connecting the dots between players, architecting relevant and high-value introductions, follow-up to gauge the effectiveness and foster next steps
• Exceptional drive and self-starter with integrity, authenticity, and a healthy dose of humility
• Strategic aptitude, maturity, and deep curiosity essential
• High degree of ownership of work product, project management of own and other's time and exceptional attention to detail
• Exceedingly positive attitude and willingness to roll up sleeves in a startup environment - early to mid-stage startup experience a plus.

Requirements

• Role is for applicants currently residing in Japan
• Legally authorized to work in Japan (sponsorship for an employment visa is not available)

Why should you be interested?

• Unique platform that spans innovation, strategic advisory, business development, corporate development, and venture capital.
• Access to and relationship building with C-level executives from forward-thinking global corporates, top startup founders, and their venture investors
• Daily insight and exposure to a wide variety of sectors, including automotive, beauty, financial services, retail, industrial, etc.
• Unique opportunity to build an early-stage start-up consultancy under the umbrella of a 100-year-old top-tier consulting firm
• High degree of flexibility in managing personal time and schedule.
• Potential occasional travel depending on members being serviced.

Compensation & Benefits
The Principal position includes a competitive benefits package.

Silicon Foundry, LLC,, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer- By Choice. We believe we are best equipped to help our Members, partners and colleagues to grow and navigate what's next. We understand, respect, and value diversity - unique styles, experiences, identities, abilities, ideas and opinions- while being inclusive of all people.