Building the Japan Leadership Team — 100% Placed by Six Sigma Talent
Singapore-born unicorn PatSnap entered the Japanese market in early 2024. Six Sigma Talent identified 100% of the Japan leadership team, enabling 90–110%+ year-over-year revenue growth in Japan three years running — through executive search and structured RPO deployment.
About the Client
Founded in 2007 in Singapore, PatSnap is a global innovation intelligence platform transforming patent and R&D data into strategic business insights. The company has raised approximately $352M in total funding, including a $300M Series E in 2021 that brought PatSnap to unicorn status at roughly $1B valuation.
The Challenge
As PatSnap prepared to expand into Japan, the company needed a complete leadership team assembled rapidly — including commercial and operational functions. Japan's bilingual executive talent pool is limited, and PatSnap required candidates with deep enterprise SaaS experience and IP or R&D knowledge paired with native-level Japanese fluency and cross-cultural fluency with the company's Singapore and global leadership.
Our Approach
Six Sigma Talent began partnering with PatSnap in February 2024. We deployed a hybrid engagement combining retained executive search for the most senior hires with a structured RPO for mid-level commercial and operational roles. One dedicated senior SST partner managed the full portfolio of searches, ensuring consistent cultural calibration across every placement.
Results
Over the engagement, Six Sigma Talent identified 100% of PatSnap's Japan leadership team. The organization's Japan revenue has grown 90–110%+ year-over-year for three consecutive years, fueled by the commercial and operational velocity that only the right senior hires can enable.
Services delivered
In their words
Kanako has been an exceptional partner to PatSnap through her work as our RPO, and her impact on our team in Japan has been even more significant.
From early on, she invested the time to deeply understand our business, our structure, and what success looks like for us. This allowed her to operate not as an external recruiter, but as a true internal partner. She built strong trust with our stakeholders and became someone the team could rely on for both execution and judgment.
Kanako played a key role in building our organization, having directly contributed to hiring a substantial portion of our team. She has identified 8 senior members and leadership for our Japan organization, more than doubling our organization with critical key hires. Her ability to consistently identify and deliver high-quality candidates has been critical to our growth.
What stands out most is her persistence and conviction. There were instances where I initially felt certain candidates were not worth pursuing, but Kanako, having developed a deep understanding of our needs, pushed back thoughtfully and encouraged us to engage. Most recruiters can not push back out of fear or lack of conviction, but Kanako did not worry about either. In more than one case, those candidates turned out to be excellent hires who are now strong contributors to the business.
She works tirelessly and approaches her role with a level of ownership that is rare. She works seamlessly with our HR in headquarters and the leadership in Japan. Kanako is not only able to represent PatSnap effectively to candidates, but she understands our value proposition, so well that she can communicate it with the clarity and confidence of an internal team member or executive salesperson.
I would highly recommend Kanako to any organization looking for a high-performing talent partner. Her ability to push back with conviction (and be right!) is what separates her from every other recruiter I've worked with.
I've had the pleasure of knowing Tony and working with Six Sigma Talent over a meaningful period of time, and what has always stood out to me is how different his approach is from most recruiters in the market.
When Tony and I first connected, he didn't try to sell me anything. Actually, he refused to work with us as he didn't have the bandwidth. Instead, he focused on understanding our business, our challenges, and where we were trying to go. Despite any commercial benefit to him, he wanted to help us.
That foundation of genuine curiosity and willingness to help, without immediate expectation, built a level of trust that is rare in this industry. When we did eventually work together, Six Sigma Talent identified over 8 senior members and leadership for our Japan organization, more than doubling our organization with critical key hires.
Over time, that relationship evolved into a strong partnership rooted in mutual respect. Tony and Six Sigma Talent consistently demonstrated a real interest in PatSnap's success, not just as a client, but as a company they wanted to see win in Japan. Our conversations often extended beyond hiring into broader discussions around technology, AI, and how businesses should evolve, which made working with him both productive and intellectually engaging.
In an industry where many recruiters can be transactional, Six Sigma Talent stands out for its commitment to quality and long-term outcomes. Tony and his team are thoughtful, hands-on, and genuinely care about the companies they support. They don't optimize for quick wins; they focus on delivering the right outcomes, even when that requires more effort and patience.
Their RPO model is particularly strong for companies entering or scaling in Japan. Having a high-quality consultant embedded alongside your team, who understands both the local market and your internal goals, creates a level of alignment and execution that is difficult to replicate through traditional agency models.
I would strongly recommend Tony and Six Sigma Talent to any company serious about building a high-performing team in Japan.
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