New Head of Japan Business selected to Mentor I-OPEN by Japanese Government

We welcome Go Izumisawa, who recently joined the tangerine team as Head of Japan Business.  Go’s brief is to provide a bridge between design and business, offering support to our Japanese clients on strategy, operations, and project management.

Go is a business design expert with over 13 years’ experience of managing multiple projects from different industry sectors.  From initial strategy to execution of final ideas, Go has led both small and large cross-functional teams. Before joining tangerine, Go was working as the Head of Railway Systems at Toshiba to develop top-level strategy with full P&L ownership.

As Head of Japan Business, Go’s passion is to find a balance between management and creativity; and develop a great synergy towards incubating valuable solutions. One of his first briefs is collaborating with US-based Hyperloop Transportation Technologies on the evolution of the design of their light freight Hyperloop system.

Go holds a Masters in Innovation Management from Central Saint Martins, in the UK, and an MBA from the Indian School of Business in India.  He also has a PMP®, a globally recognised project management certification that recognizes Go’s ability to lead projects for any organisation and in any industry.

Most prestigiously, Go has recently been selected as a Mentor of the I-OPEN program on behalf of tangerine by the Japanese government.

I-OPEN is a design management program led by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (Japan Patent Office) that aims to solve global social issues through encouraging companies to adopt an approach that embraces ESG and focuses on meeting SDGs.

The program supports start-up companies and NPO (non-profit organizations), called I-Opener, who are tackling to solve a variety of social issues in the world. Mentors, who are experts in intellectual property, business, and design, link up with the “I-Opener” in a hybrid team to solve social issues by collaborating, thinking, and acting together, and utilising their knowledge of intellectual property and design.

The outcome of this project will be showcased to the world at the Osaka-Kansai Expo in 2025.

Tangerine is honoured to be the first non-Japanese company to be selected to this program by METI.