Ryo N. Ishibashi

• Berkshire Grey is a robotics and warehouse automation startup spawned from the former MIT robotics lab, headquartered in Massachusetts USA
• Ryo is the Japan Country Manager, in charge of market operations that encompass: P&L responsibility, office and people management, talent sourcing, business development, as well as executions of current on-going projects and deployments
• Berkshire Grey entered into multi-million dollar agreement with Softbank in 2020 to transform warehouses in Japan with robotic automation, and completed an autonomous fulfillment center project in 2022.

• Plante Moran is a management consulting firm focused on providing advisory to the automotive industry
• Ryo was a part of the Japanese Business Services team, where he lead cross-border integration projects for Japanese automotive corporations

Cases/Projects Lead:

• Ex. 1 - A Tokyo based manufacturing firm sought alpha in a monetarily accommodative yet lethargic local economy; our firm was hired upon board recommendation. As the EM, I lead a team of 4 analysts through the engagement life-cycle consisting of financial & commercial analysis (e.g. IS/BS horizontal-vertical, re-cast ebitda, projected DCF, etc. ), synthesis, and finally recommendation (e.g. make vs. buy, cross-border vs. green field, etc. i.e portfolio strategy) to the C-suite. The client ultimately acquired a manufacturer in the US & gained market-share as well as capacity; success eventually recognized as ebitda / free cash flow growth and EPS accretion
• Ex. 2 - A Chicago based PE firm had identified a small RPA software company to bolt onto an existing ERP portfolio business. We were hired to conduct pre-acquisition valuation and due diligence. As the deal-team PM, I lead a cross-functional team of accountants, lawyers, and analysts to perform financial (unit economics, QoE), commercial (product market fit, segmentation, competitive/feature-parity), organizational, technical (code review, scalability, third party), and legal due diligence (cap table, IP assignments, etc.). The client ultimately acquired the target and completed bolt-on, to better serve ERP portfolio business' client needs

• Indeed is a US-based job search engine startup acquired by Recruit Holdings
• Ryo supported the PMI effort by serving as the Job Search PM Lead for Japan and Korea - where he managed a group of bilingual analysts in Austin and Tokyo to improve localized desktop & mobile search products. The team conducted market research (market sizing, user segmentation, feature parity, UX affinity, traffic, etc.) and built requirements, wrote user stories in collaboration with adjacent teams

• MISUMI is a Japanese manufacturing & distribution firm who was engaged in aggressive inorganic US expansions
• Ryo belonged to the Corporate Development team and reported to the North America Chairman & CEO to provide pre and post merger strategic direction
• Upon the completion of acquisition, Ryo was seconded to target firm to run the sales organization - where he managed 10 regional sales directors and grew YoY NA revenue by multiples