Team Member List
Please click each name to see their biography.
Miho Akasaka
Yoko Yagi
Saori Yamamoto
Yuko Osawa
Nahoko Matsuyama
Biography of each member
Miho Akasaka
Founder and representative director
Miho Akasaka oversees the overall program, marketing and public relations (corporate and administration) and manages administration for Puchi de Gachi.
Miho has worked at both large and small companies in Japan. Her past careers include founding a tourism start-up and a new department at a university.
She has a rich experience in leading projects in fields of cross-border M&As, corporate planning, and corporate finance, having worked over 15 years at large enterprises in Tokyo, Osaka, and NY to name a few.
She is skilled at bringing ideas to life and has been selected as finalist of a Women Entrepreneurship Contest organized by the Ministry of Economy and has given TEDx Talks. TEDxTalks URL: “How ordinary people change the world”
The tourism project she launched was adopted as a tourism content incubation program by the Japan Tourism Agency, and she led this this project, and its findings and insights were shared with other businesses across Japan as a model.
In addition to her work at Puchi de Gachi, she sometimes supports the launch of new business from business and financial perspectives. She is a national certified small business consultant, a certified public accountant in the US and a certified securities analyst.
Miho is a mother of two boys, 10 and 6. She obtained an MBA at Kyoto University during her first parental leave and founded MBA with Kids during her second.
Yoko Yagi
Director of educational & mentoring program, Head of community manager
Yoko Yagi is responsible for developing and overseeing business skill development and mentoring programs of MBA with Kids utilizing her past experience as a school principal at a vocational school and the leader of development of business training programs for working adults in a group company of one of the most known business publishing firms in Japan.
Yoko started her career at Columbia Records Japan and has a rich experience in business planning, marketing, and promotion, too.
Yoko is a mother of two kids, 3 and 1 and is an alumni of MBA with Kids.
Saori Yamamoto
Director of Research and Strategy
Saori Yamamoto will be in charge of researching effective program contents and initiatives, creating the program plan, and executing it in this project. She will continue her research as necessary after the launch of the program to keep improving the program. Saori will also be responsible for improving governance.
Saori has worked eleven years at Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), an organization of the Japanese Government for implementing ODA. She will be leaving JICA for a few years to accompany her family abroad starting this summer, and will be a full time staff at Puchi de Gachi focusing on this project.
Saori is an ODA project manager at JICA and has contributed to many projects in several fields, including the leadership training for vice-ministers, the development of higher education policy, the improvement of curriculum for a national university, etc.
Saori is a mother of two children, born 2017 and 2020. As an alumni of Puchi de Gachi, she has been supporting Puchi de Gachi since 2017. Her experiences include moving to Laos just by herself and her child for her work.
Yuko Osawa
Director of IT Infrastructure and Web marketing
Yuko Osawa is a PMP certified project manager with a strong IT background, responsible for establishing the IT infrastructure and supporting the program in regards to online and digital tools at Puchi de Gachi. In this project, Yuko will be in charge of identifying requirements, selecting, and implementing the necessary IT infrastructure for accommodating the programs of MBA with Kids to a larger audience fully online.
Yuko also works as an IT project manager at P&G Japan, a global consumer goods company, where she has led and successfully completed several regional projects with global members, such as IT infrastructure development in new office and digital collaboration platform implementation.
Yuko is a mother of two kids, aged 3 and 0. She is an alumni of MBA with Kids.
LinkedIn URL: Yuko Osawa
Nahoko Matsuyama
Director of digital transformation program and digital strategies
Nahoko Matsuyama is in charge of identifying pains and gains at companies for a better and more flexible work environment using digital technologies and including the insights into the program at Puchi de Gachi. In this project, Nahoko will oversee the programs for digital transformation and will work with Yuko on selecting and implementing a platform for the program and a digital communication tool for group mentoring.
Nahoko is an IT project manager and a team leader responsible for digital strategies at HORIBA, Ltd, a measurement solutions company in Kyoto.
As the youngest female employee so far to be promoted as a manager at HORIBA Ltd, Nahoko loves new challenges and excels in driving complex global projects.
She has successfully completed several global IT projects, such as establishing and launching a global collaboration platform which is now used by over 8000 HORIBA group employees around the world.
Outside of work, she has hosted an online program for organizational transformation and innovation.
Nahoko is the mother of two sons, born 2017 and 2021. She is an alumni of MBA with Kids.