Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mixi; Struggling once market dominate SNS company in Japan has changed its CEO

The CEO of the once most popular SNS company in Japan has changed its CEO from Kenji Kasahara (37 years old),the founder and CEO of the Company to Yusuke Asakura (30 years old).

The new CEO's carrer is very unique. He once became a jockey of the horse race, but he quit at the age of 16, and pass the examination of the top of the universities of Japan, Tokyo University and graduated.

He joined the consulting irm, Mckinsey Company Inc. Japan. Then in 2011, he joined the Mixi.

His favorite quotes is from Mark Twain's.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe horbor. Catch the winds in you sails. Explore, Dream. Discovery."

Asakura puts this quote on his mobile phone's screen, and he makes it a rule to read this quiote time to time. Now, there has been noone who could turn around the Internet Service comapny so far.

While other SNS companies have been trying to become Social Gaming Company, Mixi refused to become heavily relying on the revenue from gaming.

That directions helped Mixi to avoid the blames for the excessive bills to teenage game lovers.
But also, made Mixi to struggle to find new revenue sources.

Asakura admitted in the press conf that it is quite difficult to fight agains FaceBook etc, because of the scale of its businesses.  He expressed that Mixi will put focus on the expansion to asian countries, while they create new applications.

It is quite interesting to see if he could turn around the company.


(Left: ex-CEO and founder; Kenji Kasahara (37)
 Right: new CEO Yusuke Asakura.)