About
A Tokyo search firm run by a CEO and a CTO.
We place Country Managers and go-to-market leaders for global technology companies in Japan. Murray Clarke oversees every search as Founding Partner and CEO. Konstantin Ivanov builds the software behind them.
- 2003In Japan executive search since
- 70+Leaders appointed
- 100%Retention rate on leadership appointments
Treble Cone, near Mount Aspiring, New ZealandSeen across Lake Wānaka. The mountain range that inspired our logo
Message from the CEO
Why we started Aspiring Partners.
I've spent more than 20 years placing Country Managers and senior go-to-market leaders in Japan, for global tech companies entering the market and for established brands bringing in new leadership.
In that time I've seen two problems in senior hiring here. Many firms working on these roles add very little: clients get a pile of CVs, and candidates get a phone call and not much else. The large global retained firms collect two thirds of their fee before anyone is hired, and too often closing the role comes second. We hear this regularly from frustrated clients.
Konstantin has spent his career building recruitment software, and together we started Aspiring Partners to fix this. We built our own tools and use them at every stage. Before the first meeting, candidates get a clear, researched picture of your company and the role. We prepare them for each interview and run the offer and close properly. How candidates experience your process reflects on your company.
We'll also tell you early if the brief, the pay or the timeline doesn't match the market. Since launching we've closed multiple Country Manager searches for high-profile clients, and I stay involved in every search we run.
Murray Clarke
マレー・クラーク
Founding Partner, CEO
The partners
Who you work with.
Konstantin and Murray are the Founding Partners. They are accountable for every search.
Murray Clarke
マレー・クラーク
Founding Partner, CEO
Executive search · Japan
Murray has been placing senior leaders in Japan since 2003. Country Managers, presidents and go-to-market VPs, for established technology companies and for startups opening here for the first time.
Along the way he helped build three search firms. The last was his own, and it was acquired by ManpowerGroup (NYSE:MAN) and folded into Experis Executive.
Between that exit and starting again in Tokyo, he spent the interim building software, because the tools sold to recruiters have barely changed in twenty years. Aspiring Partners is the result. One market, one focus, running on research tools they built themselves.
Background
- Experis Executive
- Founder and exit, acquired by ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN)
- RGF Executive Search
- Head of technology and digital
- VMware Japan
- Internal executive search
Konstantin Ivanov
コンスタンチン・イヴァノフ
Founding Partner, CTO
Product and engineering
Konstantin is the reason we can do more with less. He has spent more than fifteen years building enterprise software, at IBM Global Services, Deloitte Consulting and BearingPoint.
He co-founded Interviewy, an interview automation platform used by US hospitality brands including Five Guys and Blaze Pizza to run high-volume hiring. Earlier he co-founded Mirabo Systems International, where he led development of Livepoint, a business intelligence tool for the pharmaceutical sector.
At Aspiring Partners he leads product. Candidate matching, market intelligence and competitive analysis, all on a platform built from scratch for executive search in Japan rather than bought off the shelf.
Background
- Interviewy
- Co-founder, interview automation
- Mirabo Systems International
- Co-founder, Livepoint business intelligence
- IBM, Deloitte and BearingPoint
- Software architecting and development
Grant Habgood
グラント・ハブグッド
Technology Partner
Enterprise technology · Japan
Grant has worked in Japan technology recruitment since 2006. He runs go-to-market and leadership hiring for enterprise technology vendors, mostly cybersecurity, data platforms and SaaS.
The seats are the ones that decide whether a Japan business gets going. Country Manager, enterprise sales director, and the first commercial team underneath them.
He has built and run recruitment businesses here as well as worked in them, taking one from early stage to more than seventy consultants and carrying the P&L for it.
Background
- Japan technology recruitment
- Since 2006
- Recruitment business build
- Early stage to 70+ consultants, full P&L
- Sectors
- Cybersecurity, data platforms and SaaS
Hiroshi Torobu
ヒロシ・トロブ
Consulting Partner
Technology consulting · Japan
Hiroshi has eleven years in Japan recruitment and leads our consulting practice. He places Partner, Managing Director, Director and Senior Manager appointments inside consulting and technology services firms.
The work covers practice builds, confidential leadership replacements, and the named market maps that sit underneath them. Japanese and English throughout.
Before Aspiring Partners he was at LHH Executive and International, PERSOL Career and JAC International.
Background
- LHH Executive and International
- Manager, executive consultant
- PERSOL Career
- Manager, principal consultant
- Languages
- Japanese and English
Our story
How the firm came about.
Twenty years of search on one side, twenty years of enterprise engineering on the other, and a set of tools built to join the two.
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2023
We built our own tools
We stopped trying to fix off-the-shelf recruitment software and built what we needed instead. No third-party applicant tracking system, no bolted-on AI.
-
2025
Back to Tokyo
Murray returned to Tokyo and set the firm up under a Japanese employment placement licence. It is now growing faster than the firm he sold.
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2026
A network behind one partner
The same platform supports a small group of partner firms across Japan and the region, so a client gets the reach of a network with one partner accountable.
The firm is deliberately small and focused on Japan. We lead senior searches ourselves and support broader hiring through recruitment outsourcing, using our own technology and a network of independent recruiters and RPO alliance partners where required.
Our name
What is in our name.
The firm is named after a mountain in the South Island of New Zealand. The platform we run searches on carries a different name, and that is deliberate.
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The name
Mount Aspiring
West of Wānaka, Mount Aspiring or Tititea, stands 3,033 metres tall. It is the highest peak in New Zealand outside the Aoraki / Mount Cook region, where it is the landmark you navigate by. In Māori Tititea means shining peak.
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The picture
Treble Cone
The photograph at the top of this page is Treble Cone, between Lake Wānaka and Mount Aspiring, looking out across the same range. Represented in our logo, Treble Cone is one of New Zealand's best ski fields.
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The platform
TalentHub
TalentHub is the AI-powered executive recruiting platform we use in our searches. Developed by TalentHub Solutions for global markets, it supports research, briefings and executive profiles. Aspiring Partners delivers recruitment services in Japan; TalentHub Solutions develops software for executive search firms and in-house executive recruiters.
Aspiration is what the work is actually about. A senior hire is someone taking on something harder than the job they have now, and a company backing them to do it. We named the firm after that rather than after ourselves.
References
What our clients say.
Regional leaders and global heads of talent who have run searches with us. Every one of them has agreed to take a call.
One of the top recruiters VMware has worked with, not only in Japan, but across the whole of Asia Pacific. He is exceptional.
We almost exclusively found Murray to be our go-to recruiter. I highly recommend him.
Impressive research and a job well done. Thanks for the great work. Happy to be a reference.
Great job Murray. Thanks so much for this. We are really happy with this key hire.
Murray has been a tremendous help in hiring dozens of individual contributors as well as key managers for us.
Thanks for your work. Nice job. I appreciate you running at a very intense pace.
Every name here agreed to be listed and to take a reference call. Ask any other firm you are speaking with for the same list, and see what comes back.
View more referencesHow we work
What you get from a firm this size.
Two partners, one market, and a rule about which searches we take on.
01
One partner accountable
The person you meet is the person who runs the search and makes the calls. There is no research team behind a logo and no handover after the pitch.
02
We name the pool first
We only take a role when we can name the target pool before we start. If we cannot tell you who the candidates are, we are guessing.
03
Japan expertise, the right delivery
Our executive search practice focuses on senior hires in Japan. For broader team hiring, our recruitment outsourcing programmes combine embedded recruiters, our own technology and specialist partners where required.
Our tech
What we do differently.
We built three tools for our own searches and RPO programmes. Each one has a short demo on How It Works.
Referable
Prompts your team with specific people to refer or recommend, so referrals are planned instead of left to chance. Part of our embedded RPO.
See how it works →Client Brief Pages
The company, the role and the opportunity on one page in English and Japanese, sent by our recruiters and agents in place of a JD. Every unique view is tracked.
See how it works →Executive Profiles
Career history, the CV, public evidence and a score against your criteria on one page. Used on Country Manager and senior executive searches.
See how it works →On our use of AI. The research and page-building tools are our own, and we use them in research, drafting and analysis. That is how a narrow market can be enumerated properly and a source put under every figure. A person reviews everything before it reaches a client or a candidate, and a named partner is accountable for each page. No candidate is ever scored, ranked or set aside on a model output alone.
Company information
The legal detail.
Aspiring Partners is a licensed Japanese employment placement business. Procurement teams usually want this on file, so it is here rather than buried in a footer.
- Registered Company
- Aspiring Partners 株式会社 (English: Aspiring Partners K.K.)
- Japanese kana name
- アスパイアリング・パートナーズ
- Previous name
- TalentHub Partners 株式会社 (pending change September 1, 2026)
- Core business
- Executive search and recruitment
- Company number
- 4011701028259
- Invoice registration
- T3010001225187
- Placement licence
- 13-ユ-318925, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
- Registered office
- Tokyo, Japan
- Directors
- Murray Clarke, Konstantin Ivanov
Next step
Let’s find out how we can help your Japan hiring.
Tell us what you need to hire in Japan. We can help you decide whether executive search, an embedded recruiter or a broader recruitment outsourcing programme fits the work.
Referable and Client Brief Pages are built into our RPO programmes, and Executive Profiles into our executive search. We also work with independent recruiters and RPO alliance partners where the programme calls for them.