Management Team

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Tomohiro Fujita, Ph.D.

Born in 1973.
Graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture and the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Tokyo. After working at a foreign-affiliated consulting firm, became the representative director of CHITOSE Laboratory Corp. in 2006, later reorganizing it into CHITOSE Group in 2013. Established bio-related companies both in Japan and overseas, aiming to transform Japanese research and development into successful businesses in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and other regions.
In 2019, appointed as a bioeconomy strategy expert at the Cabinet Office's Council of Experts for Promoting and Strengthening Innovation Policy.
Committed to advancing Japan's leadership in the global bioeconomy from the standpoints of industry, government, and academia.
Chief Operating Officer

Rie Kugimiya

After graduating from the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences at The University of Tokyo, Ms. Kugimiya joined Chitose Laboratory Corp. in 2005 to find out what kind of management system could be designed from now on to make the biotechnology industry more prosperous. She was appointed as COO of CHITOSE GROUP in 2015. As a core member of CHITOSE GROUP, she drove the company’s founding and expansion through handling business operations, financial planning, intellectual property and legal matters.
She has a large and fine network in the Japanese “Noh-gei-kagaku” (a unique research field established in Japan covering a wide range of bioscience, biotechnology, and agrochemistry) community, and has broad insights of “Noh-gei-kagaku” that always require a mindset centered around living things that are essential in the future.
Chief Financial Officer

Masayuki Imai

Born in 1963 and graduated from Aoyama Gakuin University where he majored in International Economics, Masayuki started his professional career at UBS Tokyo in 1987, in the wake of globalization of the Japanese financial market amid the nation’s industrial reforms forced by Yen’s rapid appreciation. Then in 1995, he moved to BNP Paribas Tokyo, where he led development of structured finance products such as syndication and securitization. Furthermore, he got promoted as General Manager of the branch where he built a global client coverage model for Japanese corporate clients in collaboration with the bank’s international network. He is also knowledgeable about the EMEA market through his international assignment based in Paris and Dubai.
Aiming to capitalize his vast experience, expertise and human network, he joined Chitose Group in 2021, and got appointed Director and Chief Financial Officer in 2022.

Advisory Board Members

Hiroyuki Suematsu

Born in 1959. Graduated from Saitama Prefectural Urawa High School and entered the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences I at the University of Tokyo in 1978. Graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo, and entered the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 1983. He previously served as Director of the Food Environment Policy Office, Food Distribution Bureau, of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and was a Cabinet Counselor at the Prime Minister's Office of the Koizumi Cabine.

After serving as Director of the Environmental Policy Division, Director of the Forestry Policy Department, Director of the Kanto Agricultural Policy Bureau, Director of the Rural Development Bureau, and Director-General, Industrial Science and Technology Policy and Environment Bureau of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, he was appointed Administrative Vice Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 2018. And he had been promoting strategies for the Export of Agricultural Products and for Collaboration between Agriculture and Welfare, etc. In 2002, he proposed the Biomass Nippon Initiative and led the policy by advocating the importance of utilizing biomass resources for the formation of a recycling-oriented society in the future. Currently, he is a specially appointed professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture Research Institute and visiting professor at the Institute for Future Initiatives of the University of Tokyo. PhD. in Business Administration, and became a member of the Advisory Board of the CHITOSE Group in December 2022. Message At a time when there is no way to save the planet from destruction except by creating a recycling-oriented society on a global scale, I believe that efforts to open up new avenues for biomass utilization, combining the importance of deepening research and practice, are absolutely necessary for the world in the future. I also think it is wonderful that you are willing to make the most of the advantages of Japanese agriculture. Please proceed with confidence with the business that is sought by the times.
Yoshiaki Fujimori

Fujimori joined the CHITOSE Group in December 2022 as a member of the Advisory Board. He currently serves as an Outside Director of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Outside Director of Boston Scientific Corporation, Chairman of the Board of Oracle Corporation Japan, and Senior Executive Advisor to CVC Capital Partners Japan. He has previously served as an outside director of Tokyo Electric Power Company, Incorporated, Toshiba Corporation, and Shiseido Company, Ltd.

He started his career at Nissho Iwai Corporation (currently known as Sojitz Corporation) in 1975 and moved to GE Japan in 1986. He became a GE Company Officer in the U.S. in 1997 and as the first Asian Senior Vice President in 2001 before being appointed Chairman, President and CEO of GE Japan in 2008. In 2011, he was appointed President and CEO of LIXIL Group Corporation and led the global expansion of the LIXIL Group for five years until June 2016. He became an Advisor to the Group until December 2019.

He was the Vice President of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives from 2011 to 2015.

He has BE from the University of Tokyo in 1975 and received his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University in 1981 where he serves as a board of trustee since 2007. Message I see an unlimited potential that Chitose’s algae technology brings to solve the global climate challenge.