Hiroki Kato: Leaving Corporate Japan, Exposing Fraud in Vietnam & Building Asia’s Expert Knowledge Network – E670
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
29 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 19 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Who is Hiroki Kato and what is the mission of Arches?
When I talk with ex-accounting staff, that's surprisingly the management use investor money to buy their personal stuff like billar or houses. The management asks their staff not to share any information to the investor side, especially concerns to me. If you share any information, you'll be fired.
Welcome to Brave. Learn from Southeast Asia's best tech leaders. Build the future, learn from our past, and stay human in between. No BS on success. I'm Jeremy O, Venture Capitalist, Sarah founder, Harvard MBA, science fiction nerd, and dad of two daughters. Every week, we debate startup news, interview change makers, Answer listener questions and share personal insights. Join our movement of over 40,000 members and get transcripts, resources, and community at www.bravesea.com. Stay well and stay brave. Hello, Hiroki. I'm so excited to have you on the show. Hello, nice to meet you. I'm excited because actually you are the first Japanese founder that really feud for over seven hundred episodes. So I'm excited to have you on the show.
And I'm curious about you because you're building this a business. It's a network with over 250 people and it's covering, you know, all of Asia, Japan. So I think it's really interesting to see you. Here in Singapore. Could you introduce yourself?
Yeah, thank you for this opportunities. I'm Hyoki Kato, kinda ambitious global entrepreneur from Japan. I'm running the company named Archis. It's a global knowledge provider. Then what I'm doing is connecting the people knowledge to the clients who are looking for the insights in each industry or topic. I run in these companies globally now. Unfortunately, we go very well Now they're having eight office globally with 250 employees from 14 countries.
Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. So let's go back to the beginning because when I look at your early s academics in career, you look like every Japanese person. Yeah. So I was typical Japanese. University of Tokyo, studying finance, maybe, you know. And then you went to Sumitomo as a business analyst. So
So because anyway I graduated the University of Tokyo, my father brother also worked for governments at big corporates. That's why I have a prejudice. I should go to governments or big corporates, then work for my life. Yeah. But at the same time I have a passion or I have kind of concern about Japan future. As everyone know, Japan economy mature enough but not going well. That's why thanks to our ancestors we can enjoy good economy, good life now. But I cannot hand over this good economy for my children if we make more effort. So that's why not only just going to the big corporates, I was also thinking how to make Japanese economy strong or how to keep the Japanese companies should continue to bring the big beep good value to the global markets.
That's also what I keep having in my mind. But that is my first career.
And what's interesting is that, you know, you are as Sumitobo Was the job? Did you like it?
When I start working, I like a job because what they are doing is big, make big impact on the economy. Especially I was engaged in oil and gas investments. I invest in the asset in US to secure oil and gas assets for Japan markets. So that sounds very valuable and it sounds cool. Actually we invest two billion dollars for the one asset, but actually what I'm doing is not so important task for me or even for the project.
Why did Hiroki choose to leave a secure corporate career in Japan?
Even I left no impact on the project. That is the challenge part. That's why, to be honest, conclusions, not so exciting for me, but I know it's very important to run those big projects.
Yeah. And what's interesting is that you know, there you are and you decided to leave Supertome One. Yeah. That's a big decision, right? Because like you said, yeah, you know, I went to Harvard for my MBA and I know people who Similar to you, University of Tokyo, you went to the company, they're going back to the MBA and then they're going back to the same company for the rest of their life, right? So it must have been a big decision to say leaving Sumutomo or yeah. Did you talk to your parents about it?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Hiroki Kato and what is the mission of Arches?
0:00–3:54
2
Why did Hiroki choose to leave a secure corporate career in Japan?
3:54–7:21
3
How did moving to Vietnam reshape Hiroki’s ambition and outlook?
7:21–11:22
4
What fraudulent accounting practices did Hiroki uncover in Vietnam?
11:22–14:36
5
How did two expert conversations change Hiroki’s perspective on emerging markets?
14:36–17:32
6
How was Arches launched as a survival‑focused entrepreneurship?
17:32–21:13
7
Why did over‑delivering to a few early clients create a market wedge for Arches?
21:13–25:22
8
How did surviving a near‑collapse permanently lower Hiroki’s fear of risk?
25:22–29:17
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
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