Kevin Krejci is a business development and alliance manager at Fujitsu Laboratories, the research and development arm of IT equipment producer Fujitsu, having been at Fujitsu’s US branch for two decades overseeing business development, market research and open innovation.
For Krejci, CVC stands for Creative Visionary Catalysts because “they are the rebels in corporations who strive to challenge the status quo, encourage open innovation and cross-pollination of ideas, and think beyond quarterly results”, he said.
Krejci added: “We started hosting semi-annual events to bring together our own researchers and management with customers, partners, research institutes, universities, VCs, startups and thought leaders for discussions about the future. We also set up rotation programs to bring assignees from our business units in Japan to Silicon Valley to grow their networks here and open their minds to new ways of doing business.”
Hoping to bridge the cultural gap between fast-moving startups and slower-moving corporate business units, Krejci pledges to follow his ikigai – a Japanese concept of doing what you are good at and what you enjoy while deserving pay for solving important world problems. He said: “For me, climate change and health are on top of my list, so I am pushing for more innovation at Fujitsu related to ‘circular economy’ and digital therapeutics.”
Having seen a presentation at the Fish 2.0 Conference that encouraged the seafood industry to view their game as one of Scrabble rather than Monopoly, Krejci believes the more collaboration and sharing perspectives with each other, the better, adding: “It is a ‘blue ocean’ out there, and plenty of room to think beyond scarcity economic models or zero-sum games.”
Krejci graduated from California State University in Fresno with a bachelor of science degree in business administration and spent a year at Waseda University to pursue a minor in Asian studies. He also holds a certificate in management development for entrepreneurs from University of California, Los Angeles.
