Stanford Seminar - NEC’s New Strategy for Inbound/Outbound Open Innovation

Motoo Nishihara
NEC Corporation

May 7, 2019
Motoo Nishihara is Executive Vice President and CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of NEC Corporation. He is responsible for NEC’s worldwide research laboratories located in the US, Germany, China, Singapore, Israel, India, and Japan. As the CTO, he is also responsible for the company’s technology innovation strategy and investment management of the company’s technologies and intellectual properties.

Since he was appointed as Senior Vice President in April 2016, he started promoting the concept of “Ecosystem R&D”. Under the concept, he has enhanced collaborative research activities with partners including start-up companies around NEC’s strong technologies. Through the activities, he has realized a unique R&D scheme to set start-ups by researchers, seeking for talented people from outside of the company, and faster monetization opportunities under greater valuations. To accelerate open innovations activities, he established NEC Israel Research Center in 2016 and NEC Laboratories India in 2018.

He has built his carrier in NEC through a business division, a product development division and laboratories. He received his Master of Science degree in Electrical Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and Bachelor of Science degree in mathematical engineering and information physics from the University of Tokyo. He received the 18th Advanced Technology Award of Fuji Sankei Business Eye Prize in 2014.