Meet Ken Yagami: Country manager Japan

Ex-Merrill Lynch Derivatives Desk Director joining SwissBorg to expand coverage to Japan Market

I worked at several Wall Street firms for 20 years. I was a proprietary trader, initially in fixed income, but for the majority of my career I traded equities and derivatives, most recently as the head of the Japan equity derivatives trading desk. I’ve experienced a lot; the tail end of the Japanese Bubble, the Asian Currency Crisis, LTCM, the dot.com bubble, the Global Financial Crisis. I have also witnessed first hand throughout my career that financial innovation goes hand in hand with technological innovation. Blockchain will be gigantic leaps forward in this process.

A few years ago I decided to take a break from banking, mainly to focus on spending time with my young kids. Things were not the same after the Global Financial Crisis. I knew that investment banking was not only going to experience a long winter, but was also ripe for a major disruptive change. Several years on, I met Alex Fazel who wanted to introduce me to his brother in Switzerland, who was embarking on a bold project to change private banking using blockchain technology. Through just one or two video calls with his brother and CEO, Cyrus Fazel, I realized that this was the fruit that was soon going to be ripe for picking.

When I meet people for the first time I always seem to confuse them as to my origins due to my fast talking American style mannerisms. I was born in Japan and have lived here most of my life, except for my childhood years in England and Hong Kong. I have very fond memories of both places, and it is especially growing up in places like Hong Kong that I learned about multicultural values. Deep down my soul is rooted in Japan. When I meet people with complex backgrounds and sophisticated philosophies, I instantly feel an affinity for them. When I met Cyrus I also instantly understood the ‘Swissborg vision’ and decided to join the team.

There appears to be more than enough crypto currency platforms out there already giving people access to this new market. The main issue is that once given access to this new market you are left on your own. Financial markets are complex and difficult to understand, particularly for the non-professional investor. In addition to the fundamentals and technicalities, there is a large collective human behavioral element to it. In traditional banking, there seems be a lack of guidance, advisory and customized investment solutions. We are already witnessing a major shift from fiat currency investments into crypto. As entire industries are built on blockchain technology, and new crypto currency ecosystems develop, we can imagine that the huge potential growth in this new asset class is still yet to come. Instead of re-inventing the wheel and replicating traditional banking models in the crypto world (which many seem desperate to do), Swissborg’s vision is to provide these private banking services and make it accessible to anyone by the use of blockchain technology. A transparent, democratic, and meritocratic investment environment accessible to all.

I hope to contribute to the Swissborg project by spreading this vision and philosophy especially in Japan, and in addition by applying my trading expertise to crypto currencies.

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