Mr. Mochio Umeda

A Japanese IT enterprise management consultant, and one of the most well-known commentators on IT and Web 2.0 issues in Japan, he is the author of a best-seller book "Web Shinkaron (Theory of Web Evolution)". He is the president and founder of the Silicon Valley-based MUSE Associates, holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Keio University and a Master of Information Science from Tokyo University, and is a board member of Hatena Co. Ltd, and Ricoh Company, Ltd. He studied at Keio University, Tokyo, from 1979 to 1983, where he studied Engineering and then went on to study at Tokyo University, where he received a Master of Information Science. Upon his graduation, he joined Arthur D. Little, an international management consulting firm and served as a strategist for Japanese IT companies. In 1994, he moved to Silicon Valley as one of the Founding Directors of the Arthur D. Little Silicon Valley office. In 1997, he left the firm and founded MUSE Associates, a strategic consulting company catering high-tech businesses for both Japanese and Silicon Valley companies, in Palo Alto, Ca. In 2000, he established Pacifica Fund, a Silicon Valley venture fund specializing in early investments in select, emerging information technology, energy, and materials companies. In 2006, he wrote "Web Shinkaron", in which he elucidated the rapid changes then happening in the IT industry, mainly from Silicon Valley, and he successively went on to write "Web Jidai wo Yuku (2007)" and "Web Jidai 5-tsu no Teiri (2008)". The trilogy sold more than 800,000 copies in total, and his voice and insights regarding the IT industry are still most valued in Japan.