Makoto Kobayashi

Makoto Kobayashi is a founder, president and CEO of Cyclo Hygieia, Inc. Before founding Cyclo Hygieia in 2019, he ran the IP advisory group at Deloitte Tohmatsu Financial Advisory LLC.

Mr Kobayashi has broad experience in the manufacturing, Internet of Things and life sciences industries. He conducts management/business strategy consulting, cross-border M&A financial advisory, joint venture composition advisory, IP trading advisory, licensing advisory, business/IP due diligence, enterprise/business/intangible asset valuation, IP strategy consulting, global IP management consulting relating to re-organisation/transformation, transfer pricing advisory for intangible assets, technology-driven new business development support and IP landscape analysis.

Mr Kobayashi also has experience with professional sports businesses such as Japanese national team management company establishment support and brand/license valuation, and spin-off company establishment support and content utilisation in the broadcasting industry.

Mr Kobayashi has a passion to educate the next generation of professionals and foster innovation and alliances throughout Japan. He has taught students, business people and executives in multiple capacities. Examples include:

• visiting professor at the KIT (Kanazawa Institute of Technology) Toranomon Graduate School of Innovation Management;

• specially appointed professor at the Institute of Open Innovation of Osaka University;

• adjunct lecturer at the Tokyo Institute of Technology;

• visiting fellow at the Technology Strategy Centre of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Department Organization (NEDO);

• technical adviser for IP rights in court;

• intellectual property strategy consultant at the Tokyo Metropolitan Intellectual Property Centre of Tokyo Metropolitan Small and Medium Enterprise Support Centre;

• chairman of the empirical research project for matching using an IP analysis report for small and medium-sized enterprises (2019-2020) of the Japan Patent Office (JPO);

• committee member of the survey and research project on IP management that contributes to general management (2019-2020) of the JPO;

• committee member of the task force for the business valuation review of intellectual property (2017-2019) of the Cabinet Office;

• committee member of the study of design and industrial competitiveness (2017-2018) of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and JPO;

• managing business producer of the commissioned project for business producer dispatch for regional revitalisation (2016-2018) at the JPO; and

• committee member of the commissioned project for IP training in English (2015-2016) at the JPO.

Mr Kobayashi holds an MA from the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University. He has an MS from, and undertook PhD studies at, the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences at the University of Tokyo.

Mr Kobayashi’s publications evidence his advanced IP knowledge. Examples include: “An Encouragement of Intellectual Property Strategy”; “Intellectual Property Due Diligence for M&A Success”; “M&A Financial Due Diligence”; “INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM”; “M&A Strategy for Survival: Overconfidence in Technology Leads to Crisis”; “Handbook for Trade Secret Management Practice”; and “IP Landscape Management Strategy”.