TEAM-HAKUTO.JP - Key Persons
Following a 37 year career at Mitsubishi Corporation, (One of Japan's biggest trading and investment companies at the time) where he spent 19 years overseas (Saudi Arabia, Norway, UK twice, Canada and Singapore), mainly engaged in the steel pipe and energy industries, Atsushi Saiki joined ispace in September 2020 to support global sales generation before being appointed as Chief Revenue Officer in December 2021. He joined ispace attracted by the notion of unlimited potential and ambitious challenges. In his position, he oversees sales, marketing and communications, and the company's partnership program. After spending his teenage life attending high school in the United States, Atsushi studied International Economics at Hitotsubashi University where he was also captain of the varsity ice hockey team. He spends his free time on the golf course, cheering on Chelsea F.C, and enjoying opera, ballet, museums, and visiting wineries.
joined ispace's management in 2020. Previously, he was the Strategic Planning Director at Panasonic β, based in Silicon Valley, a role he assumed after after spending 20 years working for Sony. At Sony, he was engaged in the development of cutting edge robotics, such as QRIO, a humanoid, and AIBO, a series of robotic dogs designed and manufactured by the company. Earlier in his career, after receiving his PhD in Computer Sciences from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Hideki spent five years as a researcher in natural language processing at NEC. Now, at ispace, his aim is to challenge the traditional approach of "Old Space" by implementing alternative solutions.
After graduating from the University of Tokyo with a B.A. in Social Psychology, Jumpei worked for over ten years at a securities firm, focusing mainly on the automotive and oil sectors, where he advised clients on fundraising, IPOs, and M&A. Through the course of working alongside individuals in top management, he sensed a major change in the times, which led him to join ispace and take part in such a major transformation that occurs only once in a century. As Director and CFO at ispace, he is mainly responsible for financial and capital management. He has also been involved extensively in laying down the foundation of the company's internal management, including finance and accounting, human resources, and general affairs, and in 2017, raised 10.35 billion yen ($97.6MM USD), one of the largest Series A financing rounds ever raised in the space sector. Reflecting back on his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, he feels a peculiar connection to his path in life.
Job Titles:
- Director & Technology Advisor
- Engineering Management
After graduating from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, he worked as a research assistant at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, a visiting researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then as an assistant professor at Tohoku University, before becoming a professor at the Graduate School of Engineering in 2003. Specializing in the dynamics and control of space robots, he has participated in the development of various planetary probes and satellites including"Orihime/Hiboshi", "Hayabusa", "Raishin", "Raishin 2" and "Raikotsu", and the development of the nuclear-powered robot "Quince". in 2019, "MINERVA-ll-2", the space probe he developed was dropped onto an asteroid called "Ryugu"by "Hayabusa2". He has been involved in the activities of team "HAKUTO" and the establishment of ispace from the beginning, and his mission is to give back his academic research to society through ispace.
Job Titles:
- Business Management
- Director & Industry Creation Advisor
Takahiro first became interested in space after reading a science magazine (Newton) when he was in high school. After graduating from the University of Tokyo with a degree in planetary science, he joined Accenture, where he was involved in consulting for supply chain management in the retail and manufacturing industries, before moving to Recruit, where he planned and launched a business within the New Business Development Office. In 2011, when he began volunteering his time to support the activities of Team HAKUTO, he developed a strong desire to build a completely new industry with enough social significance to be passed on to the next generations. Following that motivation, he fully committed himself to ispace in 2015. In 2017, he also raised 10.35 billion yen ($97.6MM USD) in Series A funding, the largest ever raised in Japan.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- CFO
- Director
- Founder
- Leader Management
Inspired by Star Wars as a child, Takeshi Hakamada set out to pursue a life focused on space exploration. He went on to earn a Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech, where he was involved in the conceptual design of next-generation aerospace systems. Starting in 2010, while working for a management consulting firm, he worked part-time to lead the Japanese team, HAKUTO, one of the finalists for the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, and changed the team's management to ispace, inc. As Founder & CEO of ispace, Takeshi has raised record fundraising for the company and is now leading a multinational commercial lunar exploration program, known as HAKUTO-R. An active proponent for the commercial space industry, Takeshi is guiding ispace to continuously challenge itself to enable humans to establish a sustainable ecosystem between the Earth and the Moon by unlocking the utilization of space resources.