Danforth (Dan) Thomas
Partner, Japan

Dan oversees JVP's Management Services operations. Prior to JVP, he was a founder and principal of IVEX International. IVEX has provided strategic advisory services to U.S. technology companies in the Japanese market since 1988. Dan has worked with many leading U.S. technologies companies and established and managed highly successful Japanese subsidiaries for companies including: Chipcom, Top Layer Networks, and Cheyenne Software. Dan also has extensive investment banking experience including assignment with CS First Boston in NYC, London, and Tokyo from 1982-1986 and as Vice-President with Goldman, Sachs in Tokyo from 1986-1989. Dan is a graduate of Yale College. He is based in Tokyo and is fluent in Japanese.


Roger Brook
Partner, U.S.

Roger is responsible for developing new clients from the U.S. Roger is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina and works closely with the San Mateo, Boston, Tokyo, and China offices to identify leading and emerging technologies. Roger is also responsible for administrating the U.S. operations for JVP. His prior experience includes management roles at GE Capital, Transamerica Mezzanine, and Cadmus Communications. Roger is a graduate of Duke University and received his MBA from the University of North Carolina.


Takeshi (Peter) Itoh
Partner, Japan

Peter is a founding partner of JVP and oversees the Investment Banking and CFO responsibilities for JVP. Peter has 30 years of experience in building and operating cross-border corporate finance and asset management businesses. Most recently he was President & Representative Director of UBS Fund Management in Japan. Previously he was a Managing Director at Salomon Smith Barney in Japan; Director, Credit Suisse First Boston; Vice President Drexel Burnham Lambert (U.S. and Japan). Peter holds a Masters Degree from Cambridge University and a Bachelor's Degree from Konan University.


Makoto “Mike” Hirayama
Director, Tokyo

Mike has held senior sales and country management positions during his career in the Japanese and U.S. telecommunications and data networking industries. Mike has developed and managed channels, service providers and other leading end-users in these industries for NEC, NTT Communications, Cisco Japan, AMP Japan and Top Layer Networks Japan. He has extensive relationships with tier one resellers in Japan as well as with the incumbent carriers, alternative carriers, and CATV operators. Mike graduated from Kieo University.


Aiko Fushida
Regional Director, U.S.

Prior to joining JVP, Aiko worked for Recruit Co., Ltd. (one of Japan's largest information conglomerates) and for International Investment Consultants Ltd. Since 1997, Aiko also has managed west coast operation for IVEX international, developing US business for Japanese clients. Aiko oversees JVP's west coast operations. Aiko is a graduate of Duke University with a BS in Chemistry. She is fluent in Japanese, English and Spanish.

Sandeep Casi
Director, Japan

Sandeep Casi started his career at General Motors in Detroit as Systems Engineer and was part of a pioneering development team that used Virtual Reality technologies for automotive design & automotive crash analysis.  He then joined Industrial Light+Magic (LucasFilm) in San Francisco as head of systems programming. During his tenure at ILM, he worked on many blockbuster feature films and commercials.  After ILM, he worked as Broadcast Consultant in San Francisco for a startup and was chief architect for Sekani (acquired by Microsoft). He then joined Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Lab (FXPAL) in San Francisco as Research Scientist.  He was sent by FXPAL to Japan to work with Fuji Xerox and FujiFilm as an interface between research and business groups (New Products/Services Development for Japanese market).  After FXPAL, he joined BlueRise Partners as Sr Partner in Tokyo and has been involved in establishing sales operations in Japan for companies from US/Europe.  He has spent 5 years in the Japanese market and has a Computer Science degree from an Indian University.

Kyota Itoi
Director, Japan
Sales and Channel Management

Kyota Itoi has twelve years of senior sales management experience in the IT industry. His industry experience covers wireless and wired networking and telecommunications equipment and software sales for   Allied Telesis, Lucent Technologies, and Top Layer Networks Japan. His customers and partners have included IBM, CTC, Sumisho, Netmarks, NTT, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, NTT Data, Matsushita, and Sharp, among others. Mr. Itoi has been involved in sales and marketing of LAN switches, voice systems, PBX CTI application software, wireless LAN systems, Routers, Hubs, ATM Switches, Intrusion Prevention Systems, and wireless technologies. Mr. Itoi also held project management and sales positions in the commercial real estate industry earlier in his career. He is a graduate from Keio University.

Spyder Noguchi
Director - Medical Technologies

Mr. Noguchi has twenty-five years of experience in senior management and as a management consultant to Japanese and U.S. medical technology companies. Mr. Noguchi was the Representative Managing Director of Merge Technologies, KK, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merge Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:MRGE). Mr. Noguchi built a team to focus on accelerating the productivity of imaging centers, hospitals, and clinics with a suite of RIS/PACS software solutions and professional services. He was also the General Manger of International Department at Shino-Test, a Japanese diagnostics reagent company. As the exclusive distributor for Baxter's diagnostics business in Japan, Mr. Noguchi was responsible for most of the strategic negotiations relating to the business. He also introduced various new diagnostic procedures in the Japanese market and coordinated the effort in setting up channels, getting an approval from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and working with the Japan Society of Clinical Pathology to obtain the health insurance reimbursement points established. Previously, Mr. Noguchi worked as a research associate at Argonne National Laboratory working on determination of electronic structure of di-atomic molecules. Mr. Noguchi received a graduate degree from the Physics Department at the University of Chicago and an undergraduate degree from Kalamazoo College.

Junsei Sasaki
Senior Engineering

Manager Junsei Sasaki has seventeen years of network and systems engineering experience in Japan. He has worked with Top Layer Networks,, Lucent Technologies, Newbridge Networks, and Ungermann-Bass. His industry experience includes network security, PC virtualization, wireless sensor systems, and a wide range of other networking and telecommunication technologies. He is a Licensed Network Specialist and Security Administrator. He is a graduate of Chuo Daigaku University in Tokyo.

KT Koh
Director, Singapore

KT Koh started his career with the Singapore Economic Development Board, a Singapore Government Agency with the role to develop manufacturing and services industries in Singapore. After EDB, he joined Telerate’s (a Dow Jones Company then) to help start-up their new Research and Development operations in Singapore. After Dow Jones/ Telerate, KT founded several companies in the areas of Communication and Information Technology, that were eventually sold. KT is a graduate of Brock University, Canadawith a Bachelor of Business Economics Degree (Distinction).