Unlocking Value: Venture Capital in Japan

Join us for a fireside chat with Professor Josh Lerner, Jacob H. Schiff Professor at Harvard Business School and Co-Director of the HBS Private Capital Project. Japan's venture capital market is at a pivotal turning point. Josh Lerner will discuss the historical obstacles to venture capital funding in Japan and the current state of the market. Enjoy the chance to connect with the Greater Boston finance community, especially those interested in or currently doing work connected with Japan. Registration opens at 8:30am with a light breakfast served. The fireside chat will begin at 9:00am followed by open networking.

Ticketed and open to the public (pre-registration required)

Professor Josh Lerner – Presenter

Josh Lerner is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor at Harvard Business School and Co-Director of the HBS Private Capital Project. Much of his research focuses on venture capital and private equity organizations and innovation policy. He has been recently recognized as among the forty most influential economists worldwide by ScholarGPS and research.com.

He has co-directed the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program since 2010 and serves as co-editor of their publication, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy. He founded and runs the Private Capital Research Institute, a nonprofit devoted to encouraging access to data and research and has been a frequent leader of and participant in the World Economic Forum projects and events.

In the 1993-1994 academic year, he introduced an elective course for second-year MBAs. Over the past three decades, “Venture Capital and Private Equity” has consistently been one of the largest elective courses at Harvard Business School and whose teaching materials are used in business schools around the world. He has taught numerous executive and doctoral courses on venture capital, private equity, and entrepreneurship and has introduced a series of entrepreneurship classes at Harvard College. He graduated from Yale College with a special divisional major. He worked for several years on issues concerning technological innovation and public policy. He then earned a Ph.D. from Harvard's Economics Department.

Brian Chiappinelli – Moderator

Brian is an experienced professional in the asset management industry with over 25 years of broad asset class experience and over 15 years in PE Secondaries, coinvestments, and primary funds including the build out of fund vehicles and solutions. Brian has been involved with impact investing. Previously, he worked with growth equity, debt, and infrastructure projects in the impact space as the president of Impact Direct Advisors, a registered broker-dealer, as well as being an owner in a global public equity manager. Brian's career has demonstrated a proven track record of success in private equity and multi-asset class management, ESG/Impact positioning, institutional and retail distribution, and new product and vehicle development. Earlier in his career he had direct experience with Japanese and US market prospects and clients, including defined benefit, endowment and foundation, public, and Taft-Hartley plans, as well as tier 1, 2, and 3 investment management consultants.

Presented by the Japan Society of Boston with airline sponsor Japan Airlines.