Sean McArdle Kawakami aka Sean K has an Irish American-Japanese father and a Japanese mother. Born in New York City, NY USA and transferred to Japan at the age of eleven, he was raised and educated in Japan until graduation from high school, then returned to US for college education and spent two years in France.

Through his professional career at a US management consulting firm and a private equity investment firm, he was engaged in a variety of consulting and advisory services for such domestic and international business transactions as mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, technology transfers, and venture finance and IPOs.

In 1995, he founded and was elected as President and Managing Partner at an international management consulting and private equity investment firm, Bradstone Management Initiative Limited (BMI) headquartered in New York City, NY., USA. With seven global operations in Tokyo, Singapore, Los Angeles, Paris and Milan, Sean provides strategic consulting and advisory services for wide-ranging corporate needs: corporate development, business strategy and turnaround (restructuring) etc., and serves as a leader of BMI global investment group that originates, structures and acts as lead equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations and buildups, and growth capital financings.

Also, Sean is engaged in various advisory services for national and regional governments in Europe and Asia. Besides, he is very passionate in support and incubation of venture firms and provides skill development trainings for corporate leaders and entrepreneurs. He lectures as a guest professor at Marshal School of Business at the University of Southern California and International Management Development (IMD) business school in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Sean is very active in the media sector, currently working as a host, a personality, and a guest speaker for business programs on TV and radio in Tokyo, Japan. He has interviewed more than 400 CEOs, entrepreneurs, and businesses professionals at the radio show, "Make IT 21" on 81.3FM J-WAVE of which he has served as a host for more than eight years. Unrelated to his professional background, he enjoys doing a lot of voiceovers for TV commercials, movies, and commercial videos, and doing MC for wide variety of press conferences, even fashion shows, and premier screening shows inviting Hollywood celebrities, etc.. His professional careers, versatile activities, and insightful opinions on business, politics and economy are covered and highlighted by many business magazines, newspapers, TV and related internet sites.

He received his B.A. in Business Administration from Temple University and M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He obtained his tertiary education at l'universite de Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne in Paris, France.