Consultant - International Trade, Overseas Investments (Pacific Rim, Asia)

Koichi Okubo is an expert in international trade and investment where he serves U.S. organizations interested in doing business in Japan and Japanese businesses wanting to do business overseas (especially Hong Kong and China).

Koichi has spent more than 20 successful and diversified years in overseas corporate and private banking and management consulting with foreign companies, and is able to provide a unique combination of experience and industry knowledge in overseas trade and investments, and a well developed contact network within the financial industries of both Japan and Hong Kong.

Prior to successfully serving clients as a independent consultant through his own firm, Clifford Mary, PLC., he was with Gulliver International CO., Ltd. (a PWC client), Pacific Century Cyber Works Japan Ltd., and Citibank N.A. Tokyo, where he worked with prestigious companies such as Tokyo Electric Company, Tokyo Gas Company, Sumitomo Chemical, and Shin-Etsu Chemical and sourced and solved client financial needs by teaming up with bank product teams as well as Nikko Solomon, a security entity of Citigroup.

Prior to Citibank, he was the Manager, InfoCommunications & Entertainment Industry Group at PricewaterhouseCoopers Consultant Co., Ltd. in Tokyo and was the first team member of the Entertainment & Media practice of PWCC Japan. There, he teamed up with an experienced consultant from Hong Kong, and built up a client list from scratch.

Prior to PricewaterhouseCoopers, he worked at The Sumitomo Bank, Ltd. where he was promoted over four times and completed his tenure at The Sumitomo Bank as Head Office Assistant General Manager at Corporate Banking Department No. 2, the most prestigious Corporate Banking Office in the bank. A few notable contributions during his tenure include the following:  He managed relationships with 20 clients $180 million in loan assets and led and arranged US$100 million loan facilities for Office Complex in Beijing for SHK as the 1st property loan in PRC for the bank. He also led and arranged the 1st Asia Satellite US$180 million deal with ABN Amro and SocGen, the first project finance for this kind in Asia. He increased assets and profits by over 200% (in three years) by aggressively gaining new business, earned 7 consecutive semi-annual “Gold Prize” awards by beating other overseas countries, and recruited and built a local branch team from 3 members to 12 members. In addition, he sourced and provided $70 million facilities in total to the largest Taiwan Chinese Restaurant group in Japan and led the largest profit unit and even exceeded the performance of the London Branch, becoming the #2 branch after New York (based on profit).

Koichi received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Hitotsubashi University and received his MBA from the Marshall School of Business at USC with a concentration in International Business and Business of Entertainment. He is native Japanese and is fluent in English and some Cantonese.  He was a Japan National Crew Team Member, a World Rowing Champion in Germany, and plays the bamboo flute and drums.