Voice of Clients

When we decided to hire talented individuals from outside of our affiliations, we decided to ask Shimamoto Partners for the search. We chose Shimamoto Partners because the company had in-depth knowledge of venture capital business, and we also felt confident in establishing trusting relationship with Shimamoto Partners. The followings are our experiences and impressions of the company after successful search

projects conducted by Shimamoto Partners:

1.Members of Shimamoto Partners knew financial and venture capital market and its trend very well and they made us feel very comfortable consulting with them

2.They always provided us proper advise from the management's point of view and suggestions on search universe to obtain strong candidates

3.Their advice came from a global view point; their knowledge in venture capital and high-tech industries in US and discussion on overall trend and movement of the Japanese economy (industry and human resources) were articulate and valuable

Shimamoto Partners took their time to conduct thorough search and offered the best service possible by searching candidates from a wide range of search universe, assisting us with interviews, and supporting us even on the details throughout the interview process. We feel that such detailed service is a unique feature of Shimamoto Partners. The person who joined our firm is doing very well; he became a changing agent to our firm and the ambiance of the firm changed for the better after he joined. We were previously rather reluctant to recruit employees from outside of our affiliated companies but since he came on board, we have hired a few more middle-tier employees from outside. We would like to work with Shimamoto Partners again whenever we come across the need for professional search assistance in the future.

We believe that the investment banking business is expanding every year in Japan but such expansion is still at the starting point and the business is expected to grow further in the future. In order to offer our clients ever more complete services, we are always looking for talented individuals. We consider Shimamoto Partners as our valued business partner who provide highly professional services. Especially because of their familiarity with the investment banking business, they have an extremely thorough and accurate understanding of the talent (experience, ability, future potential, chemistry) that we are looking for. Currently there are a number of people who became part of our team through Shimamoto Partners, and we are extremely satisfied with their contributions to the firm. We hope to continue building the strongest team with the assistance of Shimamoto Partners.

It is extremely difficult to find a talented manager outside of your own country. Especially in Japan where the culture has its own unique flavors different from other western countries, the challenge of searching a right individual for the company seems much greater. It is very important to understand and respect such unique culture in order to succeed in business here. Without the support of Shimamoto Partners, we would not have taken a new challenge of having a Japanese native to manage our Japan operation where we had always kept the tradition of having our own personal from our country to be in charge.

Shimamoto Partners is a company with an ideal combination of characteristics of a small firm and a wide range of network and contacts. We had to find an individual with highly specialized skills to fill a senior management position in Tokyo. Before we hired a search professional, we attempted to look for candidates within our own network. However, it was unsuccessful and we decided to seek for help from an executive search firm. After conducting research on number of search firms, from large and well-known companies to small boutique firms, we finally decided on Shimamoto Partners to execute the mission. We specifically requested Shimamoto Partners to conduct this search “until we fill the position” because we were skeptical about finding an ideal candidate, thinking “if we, the insider of the industry, could not find one, how can a search firm find a perfect match to our criteria?” We had a frank discussion with Shimamoto Partners about our true feeling and background prior to starting the search. Despite of our concern and skepticism, they found and presented two ideal candidates to us. Eventually we had to select one person out of those two, but both of the candidates were well qualified individuals meeting our criteria and expectations.