- Joined
- Aug 2026
- How they joined
- Directly
- Before Cognition
- WizHead of Japan Marketing
- Status
- Current
Overlapped before Cognition
Details
LocationJapan
Company sitecognition.ai
UniversityCalifornia State University - East Bay, Meiji Gakuin University
Marketing CommunicationsMarketingIntegrated Marketing
Notes
- In late September 2026 he co-hosted a Tokyo event on Deployed Engineering and Devin with Asmar Ghafoor, Akira Shibata and Kevin Lee, gathering Tokyo engineers around how Devin is deployed in production; this is his first visible Cognition program.Sep 28, 2026
- Joined Cognition (maker of Devin and, since its July 2025 acquisition, Windsurf) as Head of Japan Marketing in August 2026, about four and a half months after Cognition AI Japan launched.Aug 18, 2026
- Current role is Head of Japan Marketing at Cognition.
- Asmar Ghafoor's same post placed his arrival amid Cognition's $2B Series E at a $48B valuation, the $1B+ ARR milestone and Devin launches (Code Scans, macOS, Devin Plugins).Sep 28, 2026
- He reposted Cognition's announcement on 2026-09-26: 'Cognition has crossed $1B in annualized revenue run rate.'Sep 26, 2026
- Masai's announcement tagged the early Cognition Japan team: Asmar Ghafoor, Akira Shibata (シバタ アキラ), Kenji Itoh, Daisuke Ohno, Hitomi Sawamura and Mariko Funai.Aug 18, 2026
- Head of Japan Marketing at Wiz from April 2025 to August 2026, spanning Wiz's full-scale Japan expansion and Google's acquisition of Wiz; he left shortly after that deal closed.Apr 2025
- Operating Officer, Senior Director and Head of North Asia Marketing at Snowflake from July 2021 to April 2025 (Japanese title 執行役員 マーケティング本部長).Jul 2021
- Public headline says "Head of Japan Marketing at Cognition".
- An industry GTM-moves roundup reported: 'Hiroshi Sakurai is leaving Wiz to join Cognition as Head of Japan Marketing (prev. 6 years leading marketing at VMware in Japan)'.Sep 15, 2026
- Cognition partnered with Mizuho Securities to deploy Devin across its engineering organization (with partner UL Systems); the Cognition Japan team tagged him on the announcement.Jan 23, 2026
- As Snowflake's 執行役員 マーケティング本部長 (櫻井宏), he led the press office tour of Snowflake's Customer Experience Center Tokyo, Snowflake's first in Asia, in April 2024.Apr 19, 2024
Experience
Head of Japan Marketing at Cognition
Aug 2026 - Present
Head of Japan Marketing at Wiz
Apr 2025 - Aug 2026
Operating Officer, Senior Director & Head of North Asia Marketing at Snowflake
Jul 2021 - Apr 2025
Operating Officer, Senior Director & Head of Japan Marketing at VMware
Aug 2015 - Jul 2021
Chief Commercial Officer, North Asia at AirAsia
May 2013 - Aug 2015
Executive Officer, North Asia Solution Marketing & Deployment at NCR Corporation
Jan 2010 - Apr 2013
Ran Japan/Korea Solution Marketing & Deployment organization
Senior Group Manager at Dell
Dec 2004 - Dec 2009
- Asia Pacific & Japan, Marketing Communications & Customer Engagement Strategy - Business/Marketing Intelligence for Japan B2B market - Integrated Marketing / Business Development for Japan Public sector
Global Mobile Business Development at Panasonic
Oct 2002 - Dec 2004
Education
California State University - East Bay
Jan 2000 - Dec 2002
MBA, Marketing
Meiji Gakuin University
BA, Business Administration
Recent posts
August 2023
最強のイベントをご用意できました！ 9/8(金)、基調講演から皆様のご来場をお待ちしています！ (Data Cloud World Tour Tokyo)
Press
EventsCognition Deployed Engineering & Devin event, Tokyo (Sept 2026, co-host) · Snowflake Data Cloud World Tour Tokyo (Sept 2023) · Snowflake Customer Experience Center Tokyo opening tour (Apr 2024)
Profiles
Network
ConnectionsTakumi Masai (President & GM, Cognition Japan) · Asmar Ghafoor (Cognition) · Akira Shibata (Cognition Japan) · Kevin Lee (Cognition) · Kenji Itoh · Daisuke Ohno · Hitomi Sawamura · Mariko Funai
