Enter · Run · Hand over
A business in Japan, with someone answerable for it
We take the seat, not the sidelines: incorporation to handover, under a name that signs.
Japan rewards presence and punishes remote control. Most of what goes wrong for foreign owners here — the entity that never trades, the distributor numbers nobody can verify, the office that quietly drifts — comes down to one missing thing: a person on the ground who is accountable for the result, not just the tasks.
That is what we supply. We serve as your Representative Director where you need us to, we take responsibility for the P&L, and we run the operation on our own platform until the day we hand it over — to your hire, your successor, or your buyer.
We take this role for a small number of companies at a time — three to five, never more — because a directorship is a legal responsibility, not a service tier. If we are at capacity, we will tell you and propose a start date.
Build
Entering Japan
For owners who have decided Japan is worth it and have no entity yet — or only a representative office that cannot sign, hire or sell.
We incorporate the company, obtain the licences your business needs, hire the first team, set up the back office, and open the sales channels — with one of us as Representative Director while we do it. You get a working company, not a report about one.
We run this on a proven playbook, and we do not hide that. Company formation, licence applications, bank and tax registrations, first hires — these are things we have done before, in a fixed order, with the documents already drafted once. The playbook is why it is fast. What you are paying for is not bespoke paperwork; it is completion, with a name on it.
Fees are fixed for the project. We do not bill by the hour, so a slow regulator or a second round of questions from the bank is our problem, not your invoice.
Rebuild
When the Japan entity exists — and is not working
Some owners come to us with an entity already in place: revenue that stopped growing years ago, numbers that arrive late or cannot be verified, a manager who has left or has to. The company is not viable to keep as it is, and not presentable to sell.
We step in the same way we build: someone accountable takes the seat, the numbers are put in order first, and then the operation is rebuilt — costs, processes, people — to a state a next manager could actually run.
From the first month, you see the numbers we see. A monthly package goes to your head office in English: P&L, cash, headcount cost, compliance deadlines, and our commentary. We will not take on a rebuild where the figures are to be kept from the people who own the company — that arrangement fails, and we have watched it fail.
Operate
Running it, month after month
Between building and handing over sits the long middle: accounting, payroll, social insurance, contracts, banking, order handling, and the monthly reporting your head office actually reads. We take this as a whole function with a named person accountable for it — not as a list of tasks.
The routine work runs on our own systems and on AI; people are there for judgement, verification and the relationships. Specialist areas stay with licensed specialists — tax filings with the tax accountant, labour and social insurance with the licensed consultant — and we run the whole and answer for it.
Two properties matter more than any feature list. Contracts have no fixed term — notice only, because we do not start a relationship on the assumption that it ends. And the definitions and the history stay with us: if your finance manager moves on, or ours does, the next person opens the same monthly package, measured the same way, against years of your own data.
Transfer
Handed over ready to run
We are not trying to stay forever. The end state of every engagement is a business someone can take over: documented processes, clean monthly numbers, a team that runs without us — and, when the time comes, our help recruiting and embedding the permanent manager who replaces us.
For some owners the handover is a hire. For others it is a sale — the entity has become an asset with verifiable numbers, and we support the transaction on the sell side. Either way, the test is the same: could the next person open the books on day one and run it? We build every month so that the answer is yes.
Proof
This is not a theory
Thirteen months, from incorporation to a sold company
A European premium-food group asked us to put their products on the Japanese market. We incorporated the entity, obtained the liquor sales licence, set up the back office, and started trading. About thirteen months after incorporation, the group sold the Japanese company as a going concern — licence, operations and books included — and we continued to run the back office for the new owner. Built, run, handed over: the whole arc, on one company.
A rebuild inside our own group
A manufacturing company within our own group — we disclose that — is where we proved the rebuild pattern with full control: gross margin from 51% to 66%, selling and administrative costs down 42%, headcount down 40%, and a successful exit in 2025. Group ownership meant we could not fail politely; the numbers were ours to answer for.
Fit
Who this is for — and who it is not for
It is for owners and head-office leadership of foreign companies that want a real business in Japan — entering, fixing or professionalising one — and want one accountable counterpart rather than a consultant, an agency and an entity-management firm to coordinate.
It is not for organisations that need the numbers kept from their own decision-makers, or that want advice without execution. We report the figures monthly to the people who own the company; if that is not welcome, we are the wrong firm — and we would rather both of us know now.
Tell us what you are trying to do in Japan.
Building, fixing, or handing over — write a few lines about the situation. We will reply within two business days, and if we are not the right firm for it, we will say so plainly.
