Horton International Proudly Announces its Presence in Japan

Global executive search and talent management leader Horton International is thrilled to be extending its services across Asia with an exciting new partner in Japan. Located in Japan’s second largest city, Yokohama, Makana Partners, one of Japan’s most successful senior search consultancies, is the latest specialist local team to become part of the Horton International family.

“Horton International has strengthened it’s on the ground delivery capability in Japan with the addition of Yan Sen and his team. We look forward to supporting our clients in Japan with our global execution capability and our local market knowledge”, Maneesh Ajmani, Chairman Horton International.

Horton International operates from more than 40 offices, located across over 30 countries around the world. The integration with Makana Partners will work to support the talent leader in strengthening their position within the Asian market, while also providing the team in Japan with insight and expertise from Horton International to aid their future growth.
Situated just south of Tokyo, Makana Partners boasts upwards of 50 years’ experience in the industry and is rapidly emerging as a local leader in mid-senior search and C-suite hiring.

Yan Sen Lu founded Makana Partners in 2019, having previously worked for one of the largest search firms in the world. Makana Partners was launched to enable the team to focus on their particular areas of interest: people and culture. Born in Shanghai, raised in Toronto, and now living in Tokyo, Yan Sen, the Managing Partner in Japan, is passionate about finding great people who fit effortlessly into different workplace cultures. He said, “We’re extremely excited to join Horton International. Not only do we share common values such as providing world class service to our clients and candidates, and expanding our global footprint, we see huge synergies across our business. Moving forward, we aspire to support Horton International further grow its global brand.”

While only being in operation for the past three years, Makana Partners has rapidly become a local leader in its field, earning a strong reputation for utilising the latest technologies and its expansive network to provide growing companies with the talent they need to develop and thrive. To date, it has completed over 250 successful placements, and boasts a network of over 9,000 highly qualified bilingual candidates.

Senior Directors Kazuhiko Mori and Michio ‘Mike’ Nagata are excited to bring together the experience of the two businesses to transform the executive search industry, stating “We’re very pleased to be joining the Horton family and working together to offer superior services to our clients in Japan. Japanese firms, particularly those in the technology, engineering, life science, and manufacturing sectors, are becoming increasingly willing to consider mid-career hires in specialized areas, breaking the Japanese tradition of recruiting new graduates once a year every April, rotating them internally every three to five years through completely different departments, to end up creating a group of generalists. At the same time, the focus on D&I globally is starting to break the old tradition among Japanese firms.

“There is a limited and decreasing supply of bilingual candidates with strong professional skill sets who could receive offers from both Japanese and foreign firms. This is particularly the case as more Japanese firms expand into overseas markets. Unlike 10-20 years ago, changing jobs mid-career has become widely acceptable to everyone in Japan. Our partnership with Horton International will enable Makana Partners to have global access to top-tier talent for our clients and access to top-tier firms wanting to expand in Japan.”

Kazuhiko Mori brings with him 14 years of experience working as Head of HR, and today specialises in this particular area, along with country manager, financial services, operations and technology, and management consulting roles. Michio ‘Mike’ Nagata has worked in business consultancy for 30 years and boasts an additional 20 years of experience in executive search. Today, he oversees Makana Partners’ automotive, chemical, healthcare, and manufacturing sectors.

Alongside this new partnership, Horton International has also been recognised as one of the year’s 40 top global executive search companies by Hunt Scanlon Media, solidifying their position as one of the world’s best regarded search firms.