Splitting my time between San Francisco and Tokyo, I'm currently leading projects in the CEO's Office at Rakuten, Japan and VP of Strategy at Rakuten Interactive. I am a mentor for Techstars and Plug & Play -- and an occasional angel in breakout startups.

I was China CEO and Global Head of R&D at Powa Technologies, Europe's largest FinTech startup at $2.7B valuation.

I never thought I'd leave Boston, my hometown of 12 years.

Graduating without a job in the recession, I bought a one-way to China for an internship at Ogilvy & Mather. $5 a day, case studies on 1-hour bus rides, and partying on the cheap in Beijing taught me patience and how to be both poor and rich.

My consulting career started with a phone call. "Why do you want to work at Samsung?" "Because i've never been to Singapore." From there, I cold-emailed like crazy and just took the chances I could in my early twenties to see the world (and learn different trades).

My career narrative spans London, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Seoul, and New York.

My passion is traveling; along the way, I got pretty good at fixing, running, and helping companies.

Tech has been with me since 6. My first computer was a Macintosh LC III. Playing DOS Shareware games at the library, finding exploits in AOL Instant Messenger, having a Geocities website--you can't understand tech unless you're constantly tweaking. That's the magic.

Mild facts not from LinkedIn:

• Favorite authors: Haruki Murakami, Thomas Mann, Isabel Allende, Anne Lamott

• Two famous people I've met: Buzz Aldrin (walking by me) and John Doerr (sitting behind me).

• I'm not an ABC but a CBA

• It took me 1 year to reach 200 Instagram (all travel pictures) and 28 Twitter followers. I hit 36K with growth hacking in 2 months.

• The longest karaoke I've had was 14 hours.

• Self-traveled to 52 countries. My decrepit passport was never soaked in monsoon rain or covered by the sands of the Sahara. It was a birthday party at Levels Club in Hong Kong.

• I have been to every Universal Studios / Disney park in the world.

• Favorite country: Japan, where everyone is respectful and proud of what he or she does.

• Favorite foods contain noodles. Worst stomachache: Chiang Mai sausages in Thailand before I met the Prime Minister.

• I love cooking Japanese, Mexican, Korean, French, Chinese, and Italian.

• Favorite startup mome