Sachio Semmoto

Dr. Sachio Semmoto is a successful entrepreneur in the telecommunications industry, with more than 30 years in senior management positions with leading Japanese telecommunications companies.

His career began when he joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation (NTT, Japan) in 1966 and served until 1983. Following the deregulation of the telecom industry in Japan in 1984, he co-founded the first private telecom startup, DDI, which is now known as KDDI Corporation and is valued at a market cap of approximately $70 billion. After its IPO, Dr. Semmoto left the company to become a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan in 1996 as well as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University and a Research Fellow at Stanford University.

In 1999, Dr. Semmoto founded and served as CEO of eAccess, Ltd. an Internet access startup, and following its successful IPO, he founded EMOBILE, which became Japan’s fourth largest mobile network operator. EMOBILE and eAccess were sold to SoftBank in 2013. Today he serves as Executive Chairman of RENOVA, Inc., a leading renewable energy power company in Japan.

Dr. Semmoto holds a BS degree from Kyoto University, and a PhD from the University of Florida.