INSIGHTS / FOR CLIENTS & TALENT LEADERS
Make the right leadership hire.
Practical guidance for hiring country managers and building teams in Japan. Define the mandate, understand the market and run a process that earns trust.
Discuss your hiring plans →MURRAY CLARKE / FOUNDING PARTNER
Experience, applied with AI.
I’m Murray Clarke, founding partner of Aspiring Partners. I’ve spent more than 20 years in executive search in Japan, helping build four search firms. That includes years helping VMware hire its leadership team, two years internally during hypergrowth, and the executive-search joint venture I built with ManpowerGroup before selling my interest to the group.
I’ve worked as an agency recruiter, an internal recruiter and a search-firm owner. These articles draw on those perspectives to help clients define the right mandate and make sound hiring decisions.
This time, we’ve built our own platform and use AI extensively in the work. It helps me apply that experience more broadly in support of candidates, clients and the recruiters working with us. The technology supports the research and preparation; I remain accountable for the judgment and relationships.
More about Murray and Aspiring Partners →Japan’s Enterprise AI Buyer in 2026: From “If” to “How”
A survey of 443 Japanese companies shows the market has moved past pilots. What buyers now ask about governance, rollout and who owns the outcome.
First-Mover Advantage in Japan: When to Build Slow, and When to Invest to Win
Build slowly from a beachhead, or commit capital and leadership from day one. How to work out which of the two Japan entries your company is actually in.
Japan Is Ready for AI; But Readiness Isn’t Deployment
Japan has plenty of appetite for AI. What is missing is the operating pathway that turns that interest into governed deployment at enterprise scale.
EOR vs GK vs KK: What Foreign Tech Companies Should Know When Setting Up In Japan
Japan entity choice is a signal to candidates, customers, partners and banks. What EOR, GK and KK each let you offer, what they cost, and when to move.