Reon Hiruma

Chief Executive Officer

Reon's career of bringing foreign startups to Japan began in 2018 when he successfully brought UK-based startup to Japan with an exclusive partnership with Mastercard. He left the company to found Potentialist.

As a Dutch-Japanese living in Tokyo, Reon speaks four languages (English, Japanese, French, and Dutch) and was an award-winning student of Stanford’s SPICE.

He also hosts a podcast show on YouTube and Spotify called "Potentialist Show" which discusses strategies with top-tier entrepreneurs and VCs. 

Yuji Ito

Board Member

Former Managing Director of Goldman’s Private Equity Fund.

In 1999, Yuji joined Goldman Sachs Tokyo office, and served as Managing Director of the company’s Private Equity investment division (formerly known as Special Situation Group, now called Merchant Banking Division) from 2007 to 2014.

In 2014, he co-founded Wings and AILE, a principal investment company that invests in multiple asset classes in Japan.
Yuji invests in healthcare/financial tech companies and sits on the board of multiple companies including one publicly-traded Japanese corporation.

In December 2018, Yuji co-founded Potentialist with Reon to stimulate corporate Japan with innovation from outside the country. At Potentialist, he is in charge of sales channel development in Japan for its clients. He ensures that American tech companies receive sophisticated and trusted Japanese enterprises as the market’s early customers to boost clients’ credibility/sales in the region.

Hiroyuki Suzui

Board Advisor

Former Director of Accounting of Goldman Sachs Japan.

After working as a tax accountant at KPMG’s Madrid office between 1988 and 1996, Hiroyuki served as Director of Accounting at Sun Microsystems.

Later in 2004, he joined Goldman Sachs Tokyo office and played a key role in establishing "'Japan Hotel & Resort'“, Japan’s first ever hotel-focused J-REIT listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

For five years from 2007 to 2012, Hiroyuki was the CEO of Goldman Sachs -backed J-REIT and CEO of its management company (AUM $1.7 billion), managing 5 hotels in Japan and its 1,000+ employees.

After successfully changing the REIT's sponsor and merger with a different hotel-focused REIT, creating “Japan Hotel REIT”, he decided to leave the company to support younger generations of companies as their advisor and tax accountants.

Hiroyuki began to support Potentialist since 2020 as its advisor and helps Potentialist for its strategy execution efforts in Japan.