Hiroshi Saijo

Hiroshi Saijo is the Vice President of Business Development and Strategy of Woven Planet Holdings*, and the Director of Woven Alpha. He is responsible for developing the overall business plan while playing a key role in the strategic delivery of long-term partnership development and investment. His mission is to enable all to realize a creative and colorful life where any form of hardware with integrated robotics is connected to greater systems creating new value, and free up space and time for everyone to focus on what really matters.

Saijo worked on robotics software development at the Robotics Business Unit in Yamaha Motor Corporation, a unit specializing in the development of Surface Mount Technology. For more than four years from 2015 as a founding member and CEO, he incorporated Yamaha Motor Ventures and Laboratory Silicon Valley to become the first corporate venture arm of the company. One of his most notable accomplishments is the MOTOBOT, a three-year moonshot project in Yamaha Motor Corporation where he led the development of a humanoid robot that could ride on a commercially available motorcycle autonomously and challenged to beat a world class professional rider on the race track. This project demonstrated an unique approach in development of mobility that aims to enable automated driving.

Prior to joining TRI-AD in January 2020, Saijo was responsible in Yamaha Motor Corporation U.S.A. as a General Manager for developing and growing experience-based new business or projects by sourcing opportunities and partners from Yamaha Motor Ventures in the areas of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), enhanced healthy life expectancy in aging population, agricultural automation, and a fitness gym of the future.

Saijo received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Kyushu University and holds more than 30 patents in robotics technology and industry. He was also selected for the Global Corporate Venturing (GCV) Powerlist in 2016, 2018 and 2020. His motto is “Work as a way of life to explore a more colorful world than today.” He loves to see something new or different, and is curious about anything unknown to him.