Courses & Events
Mr. Motokuni Takaoka
May 3, 2011
04:15 pm - 05:30 pm
Mr. Motokuni Takaoka is CEO & President of “weavajapan inc.” and also Nippon Kouatsu Electric Co., Ltd. (NKE) in Japan and its subsidiaries in Asia. NKE is a manufacturer of equipment for transmission and distribution of electric power. He succeeded NKE’s founder, his father, as President in 1998.
Mr. Takaoka founded weavajapan, a mattress manufacturer, in 2004 and started taking the lead in developing from scratch a new mattress product, which is totally different in material, construction and concept from conventional mattresses. In 2007, the development was completed, and weavajapan launched its first product “airweave.”
As a new comer to the mattress industry, Mr. Takaoka decided to try pull-marketing for weavajapan instead of push-marketing, which has been generally used by existing mattress makers. He began by supplying his products to Olympic athletes and World
Cup soccer players and by providing mattresses to top-notch hotels and air carriers, free-of-charge or at low cost, thereby succeeding in creating a media buzz. His strategy is yielding results: sales of weavajapan are rapidly growing and the product line is expanding.
Mr. Takaoka received his M.S. in Engineering from Stanford University in 1987. He also has a M.B.A. from Keio University in Japan and a B.E. in Applied Physics from Nagoya University in Japan.
He has been serving as an outside auditor of eAccess Ltd., an internet service provider listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange, and a director of various associations in Japan, such a Chubu Economic Federation and Japan Stanford Association.
Mr. Takaoka is an active investor in start-ups in the areas related to his own businesses. Included in his portfolio are two thin-film PV cell manufacturers in Silicon Valley, i.e. Miasole (with Kleiner Parkins as a co-investor.) and NuvoSun, and IT service providers in Asia.
