Yasushi Yamamoto is the founder of Corundum Corp. (former Corundum Innovation Co., Ltd.) , driven by a mission to explore and invest in life-changing discoveries, in partnership with Researchers, Entrepreneurs, Businesses and other visionaries around the world.

Throughout the career at Sumitomo Corporation, one of Japan's premier SogoShosha conglomerates, Yamamoto has held pivotal management roles within the landscape of life sciences. His professional journey has taken him across diverse geographies, including Ivory Coast, France, and Australia, enriching his global perspective and fostering invaluable networks.

Under Yamamoto's leadership, Corundum Innovation has flourished, boasting three dynamic subsidiaries. Corundum Open Innovation (Israel) spearheads venture capital initiatives through funds such as COIF-I and COIF-II. Meanwhile, Corundum Neuroscience (Israel) serves as a pioneering Innovation-Hub dedicated to advancing Brain-Science, while Corundum Systems Biology (based in Luxembourg and Japan) focuses on cutting-edge research in Microbiome, multi-omics, and the Deep Phenotype Data x AI domain.

In a testament to his commitment to the advancement of science, Yamamoto established the Corundum Convergence Institute in 2023. This charitable foundation, registered as a 501(c)(3) organization in Delaware, USA, is dedicated to providing vital support to scientific endeavors, embodying Yamamoto's vision “A world enlightened by the convergence of science, technology, business and beyond”

Yamamoto graduated from Kyoto University (faculty of economics), married and a father of one son.

CEO from April 2020. Hidehiko started his career at the Tokyo office of Bain & Company, a US management consulting firm, and moved to JWT, WPP Group’s advertising agency, where he oversaw corporate strategy and marketing strategy in fields such as medical device, pharmaceutical, beverage and automotive clients. Subsequently, he became a founder and CEO of two bio-technology start-up companies with St. Marianna University School of Medicine. He joined Kantar Japan in 2011 and led marketing strategy projects for various FMCG companies as CEO. Hidehiko graduated from the University of Tokyo (International Relations) , Harvard Business School (MBA) and the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Tokyo.

Shunsuke (Shun) Nagao is President of the Corundum Convergence Institute (CCI), where he leads the organization’s strategic vision and cross-disciplinary efforts to drive progress at the intersection of science, health, and human potential. He also serves as Chief Financial Officer of Corundum Systems Biology, where he oversees company-wide financial strategy.

Shun previously held leadership roles at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in Japan before transitioning into the startup world in Paris. At the World Economic Forum, he served as Asia Head of the Young Global Leaders Community. More recently, he was Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Japan Platform and an Advisor at BowerGroupAsia.

He is also a Venture Partner at White Star Capital, a global early-stage venture capital firm focused on the Japanese and South Korean markets, and teaches Entrepreneurship at Shizenkan University’s MBA program.

Shun holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Keio University and an MBA from INSEAD. Born and raised in Geneva and educated in Japan and France, has a multicultural background and is fluent in Japanese, English, and French.

Naohiro Takemoto started his career at Sanwa Bank (now MUFG Bank) where he mainly engaged in investment banking business including M&A, underwriting and securitization in Tokyo, New York and Hong Kong.
In 2000, he moved to AIG to manage buyout fund (US$80M). In 2004, he, with his colleagues at AIG, co-founded and managed several buyout funds as a General Partner (US$100M, US$50M and US$200M) and was responsible for fund raising, investment, roll-ups, monitoring, divestment, and investor relations matters. He joined Corundum Innovation Japan(now Corundum Corp.) in 2016 as a Compliance and Corporate Strategy Officer, and now serves as a CFO.
Naohiro holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Kyoto University, Japan and an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business, USA

Wakuya (Wak) joined Corundum Innovation in June 2022, after 25 years working at Sony Corporation and its group companies, as a controller for starting-up business units including VAIO PC, on-line music distribution and the global treasury operation setup in its UK subsidiary; thereafter joined in the group’s financial service business unit to manage and lead the challenge for business extension towards Asia-Pacific as well as JV with a European insurance giant Aegon. Wak started his career in Sumitomo Bank (now SMBC) for 5 years including the secondment to Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, after receiving the bachelor’s degree of liberal arts / British studies from The University of Tokyo.

Takashi joined Corundum Innovation as Director of Business Development. Before joining Corundum Innovation, he played several roles at NineSigma Asia Pacific as a Director, where he managed relationships with more than 30 clients, and managed more than 150 projects. The projects varies, such as technology match making, business development consulting, technology research and so forth. Prior to NineSigma, he contributed to four projects of product development as a Mechanical Engineer at Schlumberger, a global oilfield service company. He majors aerospace engineering, and received BE and ME with hons from Tohoku University and PhD from the University of Tokyo.

Ilan Kieselstein serves as Director Business Development for Corundum Open Innovation based in Israel.
Ilan Kieselstein has 20 years of experience in dedicated sales and business development roles facing the Japanese and APAC market, in Software (Infrastructure, Developer Tools, and Applications), Telecommunications, Consumer Analytics, Digital Signage, Medical Devices, Consumer Electronics, and Cyber Security.
Ilan started his career at Triangle Technologies, Israel’s leading Japan entry consultancy company, managing several Israeli companies’ market expansions to Japan and Japanese accounts. Subsequently, Ilan joined RADLAN where he led Japan-Korea sales activities. Ilan then proceeded to RADVISION, opening its RADVISION Japan K.K. subsidiary in 2005 and serving as Country Manager full-time in Tokyo for 7 years. Up to 2016 Ilan served in several VP sales positions in startups.
Ilan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Japan Studies and an MBA (Marketing) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Hiroko is the Assistant Manager at Corundum Corp. Born in Japan, Hiroko spent part of her childhood in the Netherlands, where she attended the American School of The Hague. She graduated from Kunitachi College of Music with a bachelor's degree in violin performance and began her career as a professional violinist. Hiroko performed as an orchestra and chamber music player, as well as a soloist. She won several awards in auditions and competitions and performed with renowned musicians and artists on TV programs. During her studies, she received a college scholarship and attended the Kusatsu International Summer Music Academy and Festival, where she studied with Prof. Werner Hink. She also attended the Kirishima International Music Festival, studying under Prof. Hamao Fujiwara. Additionally, she studied with Hiromi Kikuchi in the Netherlands and Takumi Komoriya during college.

After a few years as a professional violinist, Hiroko transitioned to a business career, driven by a strong interest in the business side. Before joining Corundum, she worked at Mitsubishi Corporation and an Australian company, specializing in supporting global startups across various domains—such as finance, crop science, entertainment and IT—seeking to enter and expand their presence in the Japanese market. Drawn to supporting startups, Hiroko joined Corundum in 2022 as Strategic Partnerships Manager, where she enjoys collaborating with extraordinary talents and her unique and lovely team members. Planning of entrepreneurship programs is one of her focus areas at Corundum.

Hiroko is a working mother of two children and is currently studying to obtain her USCPA license.

Eran Segal is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, heading a lab with a multi-disciplinary team of computational biologists and experimental scientists in the area of Computational and Systems biology. His group has extensive experience in machine learning, computational biology, and analysis of heterogeneous high-throughput genomic data. His research focuses on Microbiome, Nutrition, Genetics, and their effect on health and disease. His aim is to develop personalized medicine based on data from large-scale and deeply phenotyped human cohorts.
Prof. Segal published over 200 publications, and received several awards and honors for his work, including the Overton prize, awarded annually by the International Society for Bioinformatics (ICSB) to one scientist for outstanding accomplishments in computational biology, and the Michael Bruno award. He was also elected as an EMBO member and as a member of the young Israeli academy of science. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Segal developed models for analyzing the dynamics of the pandemic and served as a senior advisor to the government of Israel.
Before joining the Weizmann Institute, Prof. Segal held an independent research position at Rockefeller University, New York.
Education: Prof. Segal was awarded a B.Sc. in Computer Science summa cum laude in 1998, from Tel-Aviv University, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Genetics in 2004, from Stanford University.

Sabrina is the Marketing Director at Corundum, where she oversees the marketing and communications strategy and execution for the group's companies: Corundum Neuroscience, Corundum Systems Biology, and Corundum Convergence Institute.

Before joining CNS, Sabrina was the Government & Cities Program Manager at SOSA, where she oversaw innovation partnerships with countries and cities such as Australia, Cologne and the Basque Country, and led the business development of the program. Prior to this role, she served as SOSA’s Innovation Ecosystem Manager and was responsible for growing SOSA’s presence in the tech ecosystem, overseeing weekly industry events and programming, and working directly with SOSA’s 50+ VC clients on their marketing and ecosystem outreach strategy.

Sabrina holds a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Communications and Film & Media Studies, from Northwestern University.

Yasunobu Tanaka, Ph.D., R.Ph. is Executive Director at Corundum Systems Biology (CSB) since September 2020. In this capacity, he is responsible for business development across CSB. Before joining CSB, Dr. Tanaka started his carrier at Nitto Denko, where he was in charge of liposomal siRNA drug program for liver and lung fibrosis indication. During this program period, he played main roles of global clinical development at phase1/2 stage, IP portfolio management and due diligence that eventually led to successful license out to mega pharma. Dr. Tanaka received his Bachelor and Ph.D. from School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University.

Josh Schulman is the Chief Scientist at Corundum Neuroscience (CNS), where he oversees scientific strategy and execution across CNS’ funded research programs and serves on the board of directors for CNS and its portfolio companies, including Graymatters Health and NYX Technologies. He is also the Founding Secretary of the Corundum Convergence Institute (CCI), where he helps build and drive the Institute operationally and is actively involved in developing and implementing its scientific vision and creating collaborations across neuroscience, microbiome, and artificial intelligence.
In over 20 years in industry, he has held founding, operational and leadership positions in R&D, regulatory affairs, clinical and business development in organizations spanning pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and both software and traditional medical devices. These roles have been in organizations ranging from small startups to Fortune 100 companies, in teams developing a wide range of products from idea to clinical deployment, including breakthrough-designated devices.
Josh completed a PhD in neurobiology under an individual NIH National Research Service Award, and following a postdoc in brain biomarker development, supported strategy and operations for cutting-edge, government-funded research and development programs in neuroscience. He continues to be active in helping develop standards and policies, ranging from participation in regulatory pilots to coauthoring cloud computing guidelines for medical devices. He also actively mentors in a variety of accelerator and academic settings.

Experienced in research and development, product planning, new business planning, CVC, etc. at Hitachi, Ltd., a major Japanese general electronics manufacturer. He was a president's special organization and carried out activities to create new businesses that will be the pillar of the next generation of Hitachi’s business. In 2005, he moved to RIKEN, where he was the first executive director from a private company in RIKEN’s history responsible for creating innovation from science and technology. He was involved in the founding as a director of the Open Innovation Promotion Council, and was in charge of entrepreneurship management lectures as a visiting professor at Waseda University Graduate School for 12 years. He is a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Project Design. He also serves as an outside board member for several companies.
He currently also serves as Director, Japan Israel Friendship Association.

In his role as Special Advisor to Corundum Corp., Thomas works at the group level for Marketing and Communications, Operations and special projects, as well as helping to establish and fundraise for the Corundum Convergence Institute, an NPO.

Thomas was born in Tokyo to a German father and a Chinese mother and spent time in Asia, Europe and Africa whilst attending Stonyhurst College in the UK. Graduating from London University, Royal Holloway College with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology, Thomas moved to Beijing in 1992 to study Chinese at the Beijing Foreign Language Institute and Peking University.

Thomas began his career in television in London at MTV Europe, and in 1998 moved to Shanghai to launch MTV China as Head of Production, where he launched multiple show formats, worked closely with state broadcasters, and co-produced the inaugural CCTV MTV Music Awards Show.

In 2000 Thomas established id creations in Shanghai - one of the first international independent television production companies in China, which swiftly became the leading quality production house in China counting some of the most prestigious multi-national companies and brands amongst their long-term clients and partners. id creations worked with clients on global projects in and around the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 Shanghai Expo, the launch of Disneyland Shanghai, and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Shanghai.

In 2018 Thomas managed the sale of id creations to Publicis Group and moved to France, where he is now based as Advisor for Corundum.