aiESG is aiming for a leading position as a startup in ESG analysis and assessment, taking advantage of cutting-edge AI and solid research achievements. aiESG's Business Solution Department Manager Tatsuro Mukai joined aiESG after studying informatics at graduate school and gaining experience at a general company. He is currently working hard on sales and business strategy, aiming for accelerated growth and business expansion, and providing new value to society. aiESG's Tatsuro Mukai, who is at the forefront of the AI startup's business strategy, talks about his time as a student up to the present, as well as his thoughts on business in the future.

Tatsuro Mukai　Profile: Mr. Kurokawa received his Master's degree in Network Studies from Kyoto University. After working in business development and corporate sales, he joined aiESG. Currently, he is responsible for connecting customers and businesses through marketing, sales, new business development, and project management.

It All Started on the Baseball Bench - A Chance to Build a Career

During my school days, and that includes from elementary school to now, I have spent most of my time playing baseball. However, I have never played as a mainstay of the team. I spent a lot of time playing baseball through college, and even now I spend my weekends playing grass baseball. I spent a lot of time on the bench, and even now I spend my weekends playing grass baseball.

Perhaps baseball, a sport where much is represented by probability, was also to my liking. Since elementary school, I have always liked probability, even in arithmetic. Even in junior high school and high school, the things that attracted my interest were things like discovering a conclusion that went against my intuition through a large-scale data analysis. I think it was at this time that I vaguely knew that I wanted to do the kind of work related to data-driven decision making. When I thought about choosing a department when I entered university, I chose the Department of Informatics in the Faculty of Engineering, which seemed to offer the possibility of being involved in such a job. It was very interesting to learn about cutting-edge topics of the time, such as machine learning, based on established mathematical theory. I also tried programming as a practical training, but there were many excellent engineers around me, and I gave up early on, thinking that I had no chance in this field.

Since I spent most of my undergraduate years playing baseball, I decided to go to graduate school in order to study informatics thoroughly and take time to think about my career. In graduate school, my research focused on network theory within informatics. I was working on analyzing human mobility networks from cell phone GPS data, with the aim of improving the efficiency of mobility and urban transportation. "Optimizing travel routes using temporal networks constructed from global positioning system data in kyoto tourism The theme of the research was "Optimizing travel routes using temporal networks constructed from global positioning system data in kyoto tourism". Although I drew conclusions from the raw data, I regret that I did not reach the stage of social implementation. After obtaining my master's degree, I wanted to be involved in solving social issues in the business field, which I was more interested in, so I chose to find a job instead of continuing on to a doctoral program.

In my previous job, my duties required me to research a wide variety of companies. In the process, I noticed that the number of sustainability-related initiatives and information on corporate websites was increasing year by year. Perhaps my antenna for this trend was high because I had always been vaguely interested in the themes of resource depletion and social sustainability.

Why I jumped into aiESG: Fascinated by the work of creating value from scratch

When I was beginning to develop an interest in sustainability and ESG, I was approached by Mr. Seki, a senior graduate school student and the current CEO of aiESG, who was busy founding aiESG. The deciding factors in my decision to join aiESG were: 1) "the opportunity to experience the 0 → 1 process of business development at a university-launched venture" as an interesting aspect of the business, 2) "the opportunity to be involved in the social implementation of sustainability in the blue ocean of ESG, a market that has not yet matured" as a social significance, and 3) "the opportunity to improve my career as a sales department manager. (3) the opportunity for career advancement as a manager in the sales department.

When I actually joined the company, I found it to be a bigger challenge than I had been looking for. There are many things, but the two main ones are that the ESG market is still in the process of growing and that technological superiority does not always lead directly to solutions to customers' issues. Although I was aware of the 0 to 1 and 1 to 10 problems in business development, it is quite an interesting and formidable enemy when actually confronting them. The sales department is definitely the department that is most open to the outside world, so we place as much importance on listening to the customer's voice as we do on selling.

What does the Business Solution Department really do?

The Business Solution Department has two major functions. One is sales and business development. This is the front line of contact with clients and is responsible for sales, connecting aiESG's solutions to the challenges they face. The other is marketing: the ESG market is in the process of growing, and while the uncertainty of the business is attractive, only a limited number of companies are addressing ESG issues as a business strategy. Therefore, we are also focusing on marketing, both in terms of how to connect with leading companies that are actually working on these issues and how to expand and create this market.

Currently, aiESG's clients are mostly large companies, but we are also developing SaaS software with an eye on the future entry of small and medium-sized companies. We are also developing SaaS software with a view to entering small and medium-sized enterprises in the future. 

Seeking people who enjoy taking on challenges - the kind of people the Business Solution Department is looking for.

The elements that the Business Solution Department looks for in new team members are personality, flexibility, and the ability to think on the run. Past business experience and achievements in academia are important factors, but as a startup competing in the blue ocean, we also need a positive attitude to take on challenges in a rapidly changing environment. In that sense, we would like to have people who have experience in starting up new businesses and exploring overseas markets, as well as people who want to challenge new fields while making use of their experience as researchers. I myself have built my career through repeated trial and error between business and technology. That is why I believe that aiESG is the perfect environment for those who want to challenge themselves in a new field while making the most of their experience, whether as a researcher or from a different industry. 

Strength to connect even when fully remote - What it means to work at aiESG and to our future colleagues.

Since aiESG employs a full remote environment, flexible work styles are possible according to individual discretion. In fact, Business Solution Department members live in Kyushu, Kansai, Kanto, and Tohoku, scattered across the country. We understand the difficulties of working remotely, so we intentionally provide opportunities to get to know each other by proactively creating face-to-face meetings after joining the company or once every few months. We also value written communication so that there are no discrepancies in our daily work.

I myself moved from Kansai to Fukuoka when I joined aiESG. I rented a house in the Tenjin area in order to enjoy many delicious meals in Fukuoka, but I miscalculated because there were surprisingly few restaurants where I could go alone. However, I have enjoyed going out for drinks with Kyushu members and chatting with them, which is something that can only be done face-to-face. The feeling of building a business together with like-minded colleagues has remained since the company's founding, and I believe that the ease of working itself is one of aiESG's charms.

In order to accelerate the growth of aiESG, we plan to focus on developing new markets and promoting business strategies. Our technological capabilities are definitely our one and only point of differentiation, so I would like to maximize their potential while creating an impact through business toward the realization of a sustainable society. If you want to challenge the world of social business while utilizing your research and past work experience, an environment like aiESG is very attractive. If you are interested in utilizing your expertise for the benefit of society in a new way, we look forward to working with you to shape the future.

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