About the authors

 Tim Clark

Clark is an entrepreneur and writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Red Herring, Asiaweek and a number of other magazines and journals. He worked for Japanese, U.S. and Hong Kong companies in Japan for nearly a decade, and in 1994 launched a pioneering Japan-focused Internet consultancy that he sold to a NASDAQ-listed firm six years later.

Today Clark teaches graduate entrepreneurship courses at Portland State University (PSU), Oregon's largest university, where he serves on the Center for Japanese Studies advisory board. He holds B.A. and MBA degrees from Stanford University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and is a DBA candidate at Hitotsubashi Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy.

 Carl Kay

Tokyo-based entrepreneur and Japan expert Carl Kay graduated from Harvard summa cum laude in East Asian Languages in 1978. In 1982 he founded Japanese Language Services, Inc., a pioneering firm that helped American technology companies localize products for the Japanese market. After building the company to annual sales of $4 million, he sold it in 1998 to Lionbridge Technologies.

Since then Kay has served as an investor and/or outside director at a dozen venture companies in Japan and North America. Kay also has been active on boards of non-profit organizations in several countries including the Japan Translation Federation and the Japan Society of Boston. He writes and speaks to audiences worldwide about Japanese business, language and culture.