Hiroshi Wald
Managing Director at Austral Capital Partners
Hiroshi Wald
Managing Director at Austral Capital Partners
Redwood City, California
Overview
Work Experience
Managing Director
2009 - Current
Lead US operations for early-stage international venture capital fund focused on identifying and developing high potential entrepreneurs in high growth industries in the US and in Latin America. Founded in 2008, Austral has offices in Santiago, Chile and Palo Alto, California and currently has 11 companies in its portfolio of IT and life sciences ventures.
Principal
2006 - 2009
Co-founder of product management consultancy providing market insight, requirements development, international project management, product design, creative and MarCom counsel to CEOs and senior technology, information and media executives. Deliver: • Sales and business development consulting. • Market influencer interviews. • Customer feedback models and data. • Competitive analysis. • Creative use of research and social media to drive strategy and marketing. • Organizational development tools and models.
Managing Director
2003 - 2006
Served dual role as Managing Director of leading competitive intelligence firm and as Chief Research and Strategy Officer for marketing communications agency. • Led team of 15 through major reorganization efforts and automation initiatives -- focused on natural language processing, semantic text mining technologies and data visualization. • Served Fortune 100 clients delivering market insights derived from mining open source market intelligence (OSINT) content, quantitative opinion polling, and ethnographic research. • Increased agency sales by 25%.
Director of Product Development
2001 - 2003
Worked with the firm's founders, two Stanford University professors, and headed software engineering / development projects in New Delhi, India and operations consulting in Menlo Park, CA. • Created new syndicated products, designed community and panel management platforms and pioneered incentive program. • Managed global software development team and reduced time to market for new products by 30%.
President and CEO
1999 - 2001
Invented new wireless research technology platform to drive real time data capture – focused on using technology to simplify and improve market research. • Built and led company from concept to acquisition event. • Raised angel and institutional venture financing. • Grew customer base from zero to 20 clients. • Built and led founding team of 14 employees.
Principal
1997 - 1999
Full service research and marketing strategy consulting agency focused on technology clients and agencies. • Launched diabetes care medical device product; USPTO patent awarded. • Advised McGraw-Hill author on corporate reputation and crisis communications issues (Internal Affairs, Neville, K. 1999) • Designed, developed and manufactured consumer sideline product - managing design staff, manufacturing teams and development efforts.
Strategic Services Manager
1994 - 1997
Research and strategy director for Hill and Knowlton US. Launched marketing research division to integrate customer insights into strategic consulting and media communications work for Fortune 100 clients. • Grew business to over 220 clients supporting $25M of agency and WPP sister company revenue in the US and internationally. • Served as consumer trends expert on client and sales engagements. • Managed domestic and international public opinion polling, focus group and ethnographic research studies. • Sold and led $3M global segmentation project in US, UK and Asia.
Fellow in Public Affairs Leadership
1993 - 1994
Selected as a Coro Foundation Fellow, a program focused on leadership and the interconnections among government, business, labor and social issues. • Led labor actions on behalf of garment workers. • Managed field operations for New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's campaign. • Developed corporate giving strategies for Time Warner.
Staff Assistant, Intergovernmental Affairs, Public Liaison and Presidential Advance
1991 - 1993
Served in the Office of Communications during the administration of President George Herbert Walker Bush advising the President and the Administration on issues related to statewide and locally elected officials and key coalition groups.
Education
BA
1988 - 1993