Members

Born in 1983, from Tokyo After graduating from Keio University, he worked at a foreign owned investment bank, as an investment and M&A advisor for publicly listed companies, and then experienced working abroad at a brokerage firm. His TOEIC score was 280 points when he first joined the company, and he struggled to achieve the level of English he needed to succeed at work, which led him to developing the products and services that SpeakBUDDY currently offers. He is the youngest person to have passed the level 2 Certified Public Accountant's exam.

He graduated and got his Master's Degree from the University of Tokyo. After serving as a special research fellow in graduate school, he worked in system development and consulting roles at multiple venture companies. While working as a contractor at SpeakBUDDY in 2018, he felt the future potential of AI and the potential of startup companies to change society, so he joined SpeakBUDDY as a fulltime member in 2019 as the COO. Since 2023, he has also become a board member and is in charge of overseeing both the product and administration sectors of the company.

He joined Itochu Corporation, then Property Risk Solution Co., Ltd. (Deloitte Tohmatsu PRS Co., Ltd. at the time), followed by Farmot Co. Ltd. (Currently Nagaoya Co. Ltd.), and Shinwa Energy, before founding the company IKIGAI. He is also the managing director of the Meiwa Estate Company Ltd. He does many different things such as investing in companies, supporting executives, supporting business development, and much more. He graduated from Keio University's business school. He is currently one of speakBUDDY's independent directors.

At Global Brain, she has been engaged as a venture capitalist, focusing on investment, portfolio growth support, and the promotion of open innovation. Prior to this, she gained experience in corporate sales at NTT DOCOMO, Inc. and in new business development in the United States. She later played a key role at Rakuten Mobile, Inc., where she led the planning and execution of strategies for telecommunications and internet services.

After graduating from the business management graduate school of Kyoto University, he built his career as a marketer by joining foreign owned companies like Coca Cola and RedBull, before joining the startup company Atama Plus. Then, he took on being one of the executives at READYFOR, as their CMO. In March of 2024, he began to support SpeakBUDDY as an advisor and then joined the company in November of the same year. He would like to advance the company operations using the power of marketing and data.

After graduating from the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies at Keio University, he held key roles at Recruit Co., Ltd., including leading development projects and introducing agile development processes. He later served as a Tech Lead and Development Manager, before joining Studist Corporation as Executive Director and CTO, where he drove significant business growth. Having experienced firsthand how essential English was in shaping his own career, he joined SpeakBUDDY as CTO, determined to make it the undisputed No.1 in its field. He was selected for the 2009 IPA Mitou Youth Program and is also a part-time lecturer at Keio University.

After graduating from Tohoku University, he joined Benesse Corporation driven by a strong belief—rooted in his own educational experience—that “learning has the power to transform lives.” He worked as a consultant for educational institutions, focusing on assessment-based solutions. Later, he served as Director of the EdTech Research Institute at the education startup atama plus. Deeply moved by SpeakBuddy’s sincere approach to English education, he joined the company in January 2025. He is currently engaged in initiatives that support language learners. He currently serves as Chief Customer Officer.

After graduating from the University of Tsukuba and while studying at the Graduate School of Tsukuba, he studied English by himself and then went on a study abroad program to Switzerland and also studied Italian. After that, he joined a research company and then Rakuten, and had an interest in creating an original product or service. Around that time, our CEO Tsuyoshi Tateishi reached out to him and he joined SpeakBUDDY in August of 2017. Now, he is heavily involved in development as our Engineering Lead. At the same time, he also helps with hiring and management of our development team that includes many international developers.

After graduating from Meiji University's Literature Department, he started to develop an interest in Technology x Something Else while he served as the project manager and CMO for the development of a new business at a company in the AI field. At the time, while he was thinking that the "something else" might be education or sports, our CEO Tsuyoshi Tateishi reached out to him and he learned that our service combined technology with Language Learning and he decided to join our company in December of 2021. He served as the Head of the Marketing and Business Division and currently oversees the Product Management Division.

After graduating from Keio University, he joined Recruit Group in sales and later served as a business director. He also led efforts to build the organization and hire for a new IT startup business.He gained experience setting up a subsidiary and serving as a hiring manager at SoldOut. His first encounter with a language barrier came when he started a new business in China, experiencing firsthand the difficulties of learning a new language. He was attracted to the open and humble company atmosphere at SpeakBUDDY and joined the company in December of 2021. He is in charge of the HR Division.

After graduating from Hitotsubashi University, she joined Link and Motivation Inc. After working as a organizational HR consultant, she engaged in work as a PR, service planner, and media relations expert for EC and Media businesses. When she was a child, her father worked overseas in the US and she felt an interest in different languages and cultures, but also experienced setbacks related to these things many times. After her own child was born, she felt a renewed desire to acquire another language, in order to expand her own opportunities and choices in life, and joined SpeakBUDDY in 2022. She is in charge of PR and Brand Management, Communication for SpeakBUDDY.

Graduated from Keio University with a degree in Law. She started her career at a major bank as a corporate loan officer. Later, she held roles in corporate planning, new business development, corporate management, and internal audit leadership at several venture companies. As a SpeakBuddy user, she was deeply impressed by the app's quality. Through a fortunate connection, she had the opportunity to meet the team during the interview process and was drawn to their character and passion for learning. Inspired to help expand this service, she decided to join the company.

After graduating from the Faculty of Economics at Keio University, he worked in the planning and management division of a materials manufacturer and later at an auditing firm. While working, he obtained his USCPA qualification. At ELEMENTS, he was responsible for both operations and management, focusing on accounting and corporate planning, and successfully led the company’s IPO on the TSE Growth Market in 2022 as head of the listing preparation project. After serving as an executive at a food startup, he joined SpeakBuddy in 2025. Currently, as part of the corporate planning team, he is driving cross-functional initiatives to address key management challenges.

While studying at Rikkyo University, he took on the challenge of performing in English-language theater. After graduation, he joined Benesse Corporation, where he supported high school and university students with career development and English learning. He later joined Loglass, helping executives and corporate planning departments drive digital transformation in management operations, with a focus on enhancing management control. Drawn to SpeakBuddy’s mission of “expanding life’s possibilities and choices,” he joined the company to support global talent development in the corporate sector.

After working as a software engineer at several large and mid-sized companies, she transitioned to the startup sector. At SmartNews, she led a project focused on improving user retention after app installation. She then gained further experience as a Product Manager at several startups. When she needed to improve her English skills for work, she used SpeakBUDDY and found it highly effective. Deeply aligned with the company’s mission, she joined SpeakBuddy in July 2025.

While he was a student at Hosei University's Applied Information and Engineering Department, he specialized in programming, and wanted to get more hands on experience, so he joined SpeakBUDDY as an intern in 2016. After graduating from university in April of 2018, he became a full time member of the company. On top of deploying features to the app, he took part in the early digital marketing activities at the company, handling everything from strategy to execution, and also contributed greatly to the product strategy as well. Now, he is leading the implementation of important features for the app as an iOS engineer, as well as leading growth and user analysis activities.

After graduating from a university in Canada, he worked on Android development projects across a wide range of industries, including payments, automotive, and social media, in both startups and global companies. Eight years ago, he moved to Japan, where he deepened his understanding of the language and culture. This experience made him realize that speaking multiple languages allows one to connect with the essence of a culture and build meaningful relationships. Driven by the desire to share this experience with others, he joined the company in December 2024.

After graduating from university, he joined Cybozu as a new graduate. He then gained experience at two startups before working at Salesforce, where he was involved in sales and management for a range of mid-to-enterprise clients. Driven by a passion for people development and unlocking peoples' potential, he transitioned to the EdTech field at Monoxer before joining our company in February 2025.

He graduated from Doshisha University Graduate School. After gaining experience in corporate sales at Intelligence, he earned an MBA. He played a key role in launching the Japan office of a foreign-owned marketing support firm, and later held managerial positions in sales, marketing, and planning at BIZREACH. He was inspired by the value of language education through his child’s study abroad experience, and joined SpeakBUDDY in May 2025 due to a strong alignment with its mission. He is currently driving business growth with a focus on B2B marketing.

He graduated from the law department of Rikkyo University. He came across the development environment Max/MSP that was geared towards artistic development, and became a programmer after feeling that development was fun because it was a lot like playing with blocks. He experienced development environments at several different companies, and joined SpeakBUDDY in 2014. He developed the English vocabulary app "Majitan", the TOEIC app "App Tore", and the English grammar app "Majigura"with the company before starting development on SpeakBuddy's iOS app.

After graduating from Waseda University, she was in corporate sales at a publishing company as a new grad. After that, she lent a hand to many companies as a freelance writer and back office support. In 2014, as a contract worker, she came across SpeakBUDDY (appArray at the time), and was moved by how easily and effectively she could study English through an app. After that, she assisted the company in many areas and was involved in starting up SpeakBUDDY's Personal Coaching business. While hoping to have as many people as possible experience the same feelings about our products that she had felt, she joined SpeakBUDDY as a full time member in 2020.

After graduating from Meiji Gakuin University, she joined GABA. She was in charge of operating English schools and training programs geared towards corporations inside of over 2000 corporations and government agencies. While supporting the efforts of many Japanese people to learn English through that work, she learned about SpeakBUDDY and thought that by using technology, we can make language acquisition more efficient and enable even more people to acquire language ability, so she joined the company in February of 2021. She is now active as one of SpeakBUDDY's corporate Sales.

Originally from Hawaii, she graduated from a university in the US. From 2015, she spent 3 years as an ALT with the JET Programme, teaching English, and running English classes and events for many students from elementary schoolers to adults in Nagano prefecture. She also experienced a short 4 month study abroad program at Tokyo International University, and after her JET Programme experience ended, she came across SpeakBUDDY while looking for a job that would allow her to be connected to people and to use her English and Japanese language skills. She deeply empathized with the company's mission, and wanted to help accomplish it, so she joined the company in August of 2018.

Originally from the Netherlands. He attended Utrecht University, one of the top 100 universities in the world, where he got his master's in mathematics. After working at companies in many fields from finance to IT, he came to Japan in 2017, and joined SpeakBUDDY in July of 2019. He has been doing development for SpeakBuddy using the latest AI technology, machine learning and deep learning, and voice recognition.

Working for 14 years at a large English school corporation, she was involved in school operation and many new projects like developing new services for corporate users. When she was working as an office assistant at an importing and exporting company, she realized that there were people who could not accomplish their dreams because their English skills were not good enough, and that memory stuck with her, so when she found out about SpeakBUDDY's personal coaching program, that uses the AIxEnglish conversation app SpeakBuddy to teach English, she still remembers being excited about it. She met our CEO Tsuyoshi Tateishi and felt that she wanted to deliver a service that is fitting for our current era and beyond, so she joined the company in October of 2019.

Originally from the UK, he studied computer science at the University of Nottingham. He worked for various companies as a software engineer for 3 years. Then he worked as an English teacher at an English conversation school for 3 and a half years. He joined SpeakBUDDY as a server engineer in November of 2019. He is in charge of solving server issues when a new feature is added to the SpeakBuddy app, as well as other server integration and consolidation work.

He has built his career mainly in the backend development field through doing development for EC Websites. He experienced the difficulty of having to communicate in a foreign language with no support, when he was working abroad in Vietnam, and felt that it was a necessity to learn English Conversation. When he returned from working overseas, there was a period of time where his feeling about the necessity of learning English conversation decreased a bit, but then he met Yokokawa-san at an Engineer study group and learned about SpeakBUDDY. He joined the company in January of 2021 because he was interested in our product and he felt that he wanted to contribute as an IC. He is in charge of the backend development and cloud infrastructure development for our SpeakBuddy app.

Originally from Norway, he graduated from the University of Oslo. He did a 1 year study abroad program at Ritsumeikan University in Japan. In Norway, he worked as a backend engineer in the finance industry. In Japan, he worked as a full stack engineer, before joining SpeakBUDDY in April of 2021, as a web engineer. He is currently working on our landing pages, the Q&A Web Platform service, and adding new contents and features to our web projects.

From Guangzhou, China. She studied graphic design and contemporary art, and got her master's degree from Tokyo University of the Arts. She also had experience doing a short term study abroad program at the famous art university Central St. Martin's in the UK and has a deep understanding and knowledge about art and design. She worked for Alibaba China as a new graduate and experienced the company getting two hundred million dollars of funding for an education app that she was doing the UI/UX design for. In June of 2021, she joined SpeakBUDDY and has been doing a lot of work on the app's UI design as well as branding design for the company.

After graduating from the Sociology department of Doshisha University, she built DMP/CDP systems and using location data to support marketing activities at 2 startup companies. After that, she wanted to work at a product company, and came across SpeakBUDDY, and since she wasn't confident in her English abilities at the time, she felt that she could relate to the issues the company was trying to tackle. She also felt that she wanted to contribute to the growth of a product that she truly believed was good from the bottom of her heart, and joined the company in September of 2021. She is in charge of analyzing the data from each product and service (from gathering and linking data, to creating visuals for the data, and analyzing the data, as well as suggesting plans of actions based on the data).

He graduated from the department of computer science at the University of Otago in New Zealand. He was then in charge of development and direction for a service that dealt with athlete's voices at a sports media company. He wanted to do development that was related to English and had experienced his own perspective change after going overseas, so he empathized with SpeakBUDDY's goal and joined the company in September of 2021. Right now, he is working on the development of new features and bug fixes for SpeakBuddy's iOS app.

She graduated from the Ochanomizu Women's University Graduate school with a master's degree in life sciences. As a new graduate, she joined Net Protections and was in charge of hiring, sales, and planning. After that, she joined a design planning company as a PR planner. Since she's the type of person that tends to get attached to the people, things, and places she is involved with deeply, when she came across SpeakBUDDY, she felt that the she wanted to do everything she could to help build an organization that could make the company's mission come true and its services succeed, and joined the company in August of 2022. Now, she is in charge of hiring and hiring PR.

She had been working at an English conversation school for 9 years since she graduated from university. She worked her way up from the staff level to deputy manager starting in sales and then moving to student management and counseling. She started learning English in junior high school and developed an interest in other languages and cultural differences, so she put a lot of effort into studying English. When she was in university, she got her English teaching license. She had a strong desire to help people achieve their goals and dreams through English, regardless of their age, so she empathized with SpeakBUDDY's mission. She was able to experience the atmosphere of the company, as well as our CEO Tsuyoshi Tateishi's character in interviews, and she joined SpeakBUDDY in August of 2022.

Originally from China, he graduated from Keio University's Graduate School with a major in design. He co-founded the game company Kinix, and served as its game director. He joined SpeakBUDDY in February of 2023 because he wanted to use the power of games to create a product for the language acquisition market that would deliver a truly one of a kind experience to users. He is now working mainly on UI/UX design, as well as product design and growth projects.

Originally from Brazil, he was a software engineer at Dava Tech, where he led the team that was developing and manufacturing two factor authentification products in the SaaS industry. After that, he was a senior iOS engineer on the iOS team at Rakuten, where he helped improve the performance and UX of their product. He felt confident that he could use his expertise to contribute to the revolutionary product at a futuristic company like SpeakBUDDY, so he joined us in April of 2024.

He went to America alone as a high schooler. After that, he did business planning, sales, and SE in many fields such as for trading companies, energy, IT, and fashion. Since 2014, he decided to give his undivided attention to English Language Learning, which he had been interested in for a long time, and began a path of children's English language education. He started with us as a contractor for the Personal Coaching service in 2021. He was drawn to the potential of combining AI with language learning and was sure that our organization's work environment would allow him to use his own previous experiences the best of his abilities, so he joined us as a full time member in May of 2024.

After graduating from university, she handled job listing advertisements and media representation and also experienced a wide variety of work in advertisement for a foreign-operated platform, as well as doing ad sales, ad operation, and starting up new businesses. When she was working at this business, she experienced difficulties due to her level of English ability and learned about SpeakBUDDY when she developed an interest in learning languages. She was able to experience the company's attractiveness as a user and wanted to use the knowledge and experiences she has acquired in marketing, and joined the company in May of 2024.

After graduating from Sophia University, she joined Star Festival as the first new graduate. After joining the company, she was in charge of PR work and helped to spread awareness of the company's business and products. After that, she felt that she wanted to know the consumers' point of view as well and joined Atama Plus in customer success. She has experienced difficulties in the past while studying abroad in America, or living in Korea with her family, and joined SpeakBUDDY because she wanted to create a world where, using the power of language, you can create a lifestyle that's fitting for you. Now, she's handling PR and inhouse communications at SpeakBUDDY.

After completing a graduate degree at the University of Tokyo, she joined a large English Conversation School corporation. She was in charge of supporting the students, developing teaching materials for the company, and using platforms like Youtube and X to develop content for the company. After that, she joined a publishing company and worked on creating English language study materials. She wrote and edited English listening and speaking tests, as well as digital study materials. She then felt that she wanted to contribute to improving Japanese people's English skills in a new field that uses AI study methods and coaching to manage people's English studies, and joined SpeakBUDDY in July of 2024.

Originally from Indonesia, he graduated from Institut Teknologi Bandung Indonesia majoring Information System and Technology and started his career at OVO Indonesia as Lead Android Developer developing Indonesia's first e-money Android application. After working at PayTren 5.17 Indonesia, he joined Virgo Indonesia as Head of FrontEnd supervise both Android, iOS and Web developer developing e-money Application. Afer that, he moved to Rakuten Payment as technical lead. He thinks that language learning is interesting journey and is eager to contribute that people can learn English easily, and decided to join SpeakBUDDY in August, 2024.

After graduating from the Economics Department of Keio University, she joined the Corporate Sales Division of Soft Bank. Since she was a student, she was interested in the values and culture of different countries, so she joined the 1 on 1 English school Gaba. As a counselor and learning studio manager, she was in charge of creating the best environment to study English. She felt that she wanted to take on the challenge of helping even more people "acquire true language skills", closing the distance between Japan and other countries even more, and joining a company that would really make her consider what ways she wanted Japan to change, so she joined SpeakBUDDY in September 2024.

Born in Taiwan, he earned a master’s degree there. After graduation, he worked as an iOS and Flutter developer at various tech companies. He has been passionate about programming languages and language learning since he was young, with over 10 years of iOS development experience, and he’s excited about the future development of AI. He joined the company in October 2024 and, currently, is responsible for the iOS development and maintenance of the SpeakBuddy app.

Graduated from a U.S. state university and Bond University Graduate School of Business, BBT-MBA Program. Completed TEFL certification. Gained experience at a consulting firm, working on corporate training programs and launching English education initiatives at private universities. Later, engaged in a wide range of projects related to international business, government, corporate, and local government affairs at a think tank. Joined Coach Buddy as an independent contractor in 2019 and became a full-time employee at SpeakBUDDY in March 2025 to contribute to achieving its vision.

Originally from Indonesia. After graduating from Bandung Institute of Technology, he worked as a software engineer developing notification systems and e-commerce features. Later, he served as a backend lead in the e-commerce industry and as an engineering manager overseeing multiple teams. His childhood experiences playing video games in English sparked an awareness of the challenges of learning a second language. Motivated to support others facing similar struggles, he joined SpeakBuddy in June 2025. He currently works as a server-side engineer, developing new features and improving the app.

After graduating from university, she joined an advertising agency. She later worked at a social insurance and labor consultant office, where she was responsible for around 60 client companies. Over eight years, she gained extensive experience in labor consulting, as well as labor-related due diligence for IPOs and M&A projects. While working in a support role, she developed a strong interest in moving to a business-side position and serving as a bridge between management and employees. This led her to connect with SpeakBUDDY, and she joined the company in October 2025. She is currently responsible for all labor-related matters.

After graduating from Kobe University, he worked as an advertising planner at Septeni, followed by roles in D2C promotion, management of a talent agency, and marketing-related positions in lifestyle services, including marketing, CRM, and product ownership. He also served as the head of marketing for a live-streaming app. Through his own experience, he came to realize that being able to speak English significantly expands one’s possibilities in life. Deeply resonating with SpeakBUDDY’s social mission to improve English proficiency among Japanese people, he joined the company. He is currently in charge of digital marketing.