Katsunori Sago, chief strategy officer for Japan-listed internet and telecommunications conglomerate SoftBank Group, will resign at the end of this month, the company said on Friday.
Sago joined SoftBank in 2018 after three years as chief investment officer of Japan Post Bank, a subsidiary of postal service Japan Post. He had previously been an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in Japan.
Sago “played a crucial part in expanding [SoftBank Group’s] potential as an investment company,’ Son said in a statement used by Reuters which did not provide a reason for the departure.
The Financial Times stated that Sago’s exit marks the second time a high-profile executive has quit after being recruited as potential heir to SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, following the 2016 departure of former Google executive Nikesh Arora.
The move comes after Son, who is 63, recently said that he plans to stay as the leader of the group beyond the age of 70, the FT added.
The company removed Sago, chief operating officer Marcelo Claure and Rajeev Misra, head of SoftBank’s Vision Funds, from its board of directors in 2020 following investor pressure to improve oversight at the group.
In recent months, Michael Ronen, another former Goldman Sachs banker and a top US executive at Vision Fund, left the group after expressing concerns about “issues,” the FT said.
SoftBank’s Vision Fund 1 and 2, however, recorded their best performance in the final three months of 2020, after a turbulent year during which it carried out a restructuring of assets such as community workspace provider WeWork.
