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Yasuaki Sakurai

PartnerTokyo

Advises consumer-goods and service companies and retailers on global strategy development, go-to-market strategy, and digital-enabled operation transformations with a focus on corporate-business and sales-function transformation and automation at scale

Yasu serves consumer-goods and service companies and retailers in the food, beauty, toy, consumer-health, and retail-banking sectors. He focuses on global strategy development, go-to-market strategy, and digital-enabled operation transformations with a focus of corporate-business and sales-function transformation and automation at scale. On this issue, he leads multiple transformation for major consumer-facing companies, such as consumer-goods manufacturers and healthcare-service providers.

Examples of Yasu’s recent client projects include the following:

  • developing a long-term strategy for a global consumer manufacturer, including new business incubation
  • helping to define company-wide digital vision and prioritize digital initiatives as well as identify potential digital-organization structure and IT architecture for a food manufacturer
  • designing the go-to-market strategy for a consumer company to expand its penetration into emerging markets, including Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia
  • supporting a cross-border M&A due diligence and global strategy development for a consumer manufacturer
  • enhancing financial function for a Japanese manufacturer through digital and analytics in sync with SAP implementation program
  • leading design and implementation on a digital-enabled productivity improvement transformation program in a corporate business function for a Japanese healthcare manufacturer

Published work

The future of work in Japan: Accelerating automation after COVID-19,” McKinsey & Company, July 2020

Education

Kellogg School of Management
MBA

University of Tokyo
BA, law and politics