Kazunobu "Kevin" Sakai
President and Chief Executive Officer

Kazunobu “Kevin” Sakai joined ITOCHU Corporation in 1986 after graduating from Waseda University. In 1990 he moved to ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and in 1992 he took the first of his many positions in ITOCHU Corporation’s IT Business Department. Sakai’s other roles with ITOCHU include two years as a trainee in France, five years as COO at ITOCHU subsidiary CIE America in Los Angeles, and two years in ITOCHU headquarters’ Corporate Planning & Administration and Human Resources Divisions. In April 2007, he joined ITOCHU Cable System and in April 2008, he assumed his current position as President of ITOCHU Technology, Inc. He is also acting as SVP and GM of ITOCHU International’s (III) IT & Aerospace Division in New York.

Shinzo Nakano
Senior Vice President, International Business Development
& Operations

Shinzo Nakano is senior vice president and COO of Itochu Technology, Inc., a US subsidiary of Itochu Corporation, a Fortune Global 500 company. As a general trading firm, Itochu Corporation has evolved and grown over about 150 years into a business engaged in the domestic trading, import/export, and overseas trading of various products such as textiles, machinery, information and communications-related products, metals, products related to oil and other energy sources, general merchandise, chemicals, and provisions and food. Moreover, the company has made multifaceted investments in operations and businesses incidental or related to those fields.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, Shinzo Nakano joined Itochu Corporation right after graduation from Keio University in Tokyo in 1989. At Itochu, he has been working in Information Technology industry throughout his career. He has experienced system development, sales and marketing of computer products, Internet business development and venture investment. He was involved in Itochu’s first venture investment in Silicon Valley in 1994 and has been in the industry until now. In 2000, he joined Itochu Technology Ventures, Inc., a venture capital arm of Itochu, as a founding partner. It manages over US$100 million fund focusing on IT related venture companies in Japan. After he achieved several exits at the VC, he moved to Itochu Technology, Inc. in Santa Clara, CA, in October, 2006 to pursue business development and venture investment in US. Shinzo Nakano holds a B.S.degree in law from Keio University in Tokyo, Japan.

Takeyuki Takada
Vice President, International Business Development
& Operations

Takayuki Takada is the Vice President of Business Development and brings more than 14 years of experience to ITOCHU Technology, Inc (ITI) from ITOCHU Corporation's Information Technology and Multimedia group. Prior to joining ITI in May 2006, Takada most recently worked at ITOCHU Corporation’s IT business department in Japan where he focused on the business development and venture investment in the e-business space. He also worked in strategic alliance division at ITOCHU Electronics Corp.. He also managed business development in the mobile contents business in Asia at CYBIRD Co.,Ltd. Prior to CYBIRD,  he led establishing B2C sites, including Excite Japan, at ITOCHU Corporation.
Takada graduated from Yokohama National University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in High Voltage Engineering.

Akito Nozawa
Vice President and GM of the New York Business Operations

Akito brings more than 13 years of experience to ITI from ITOCHU Corporation’s IT and Telecommunications Division.Just before joining ITI in April 2007, Akito most recently worked at IT business department in Tokyo, and focused

on business development with new technologies, such as nanotechnology and MEMS. He also worked in ITOCHU Cable Systems Corp., and focused on selling the optical video transport systems to CATV operators and telecom carriers in Japan. With his engineering knowledge and experience, he achieved to deploy them in more than 20 sites, which brought people high-quality pictures of local TV programs. Prior to that, he was located in Moscow, in charge of nationwide distribution of home appliance products in Russia and CIS countries. He contributed to establish nearly 70 dealers network there. Akito holds a Master degree of applied physics from Waseda University Graduates School in Tokyo, Japan.

John Takita
Director of Sales, New York Business Operations

John Takita is Director of Sales at Itochu Technology Inc. (ITI) responsible for enterprise sales for Global Network Solutions (GNS), ITI, developing and leveraging strategic partnerships with hardware companies, ISPs and consulting firms such as Sun, HP, IBM, Egenera, EMC, Red Hat, SAIC, and Boeing. With over 10 years experience in the technology industry, Takita currently works with clients in a variety of vertical industries including healthcare, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing as well as with financial institutions and the US government. Prior to ITI, he was a cash management consultant to Global 500 companies at The Bank of Tokyo. John holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Villanova University.

Masanori Tanaka
Vice President, CTC Business Development

Masanori Tanaka is Vice President of ITOCHU Technology, Inc. (ITI) and focuses on international business development and vendor relationship management, specifically for CTC. His managerial skills are based on more than 15 years of experience in the IT industry. He was most recently a consultant in the IT Consulting Division at ITOCHU TECHNO-SCIENCE Corporation (CTC), where he was responsible for the western region in Japan, particularly in the financial services, manufacturing and retail industries. His activities include providing information technology (IT) related consultation services and conducting feasibility studies for customers. He also directs the development of long-term effective IT strategies, feasibility studies of new technologies and /or systems to launch various projects. Furthermore, he is formulating marketing plans in coordination with software/hardware vendors and overseeing the market research in order to make competitive marketing plans. Tanaka holds a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the University of DOSHISHA in Kyoto, Japan