CORPORATE

Business Advisor

Yu "Duke" Hirano

Yu "Duke" Hirano has over 30 years of experience in the areas of semiconductor and technical software in the Japanese market. Over the past several years, he has been serving as a consultant/advisor for several venture backed companies in Japan such as Sierra Design Automation (now Mentor Graphics), ArchPro (now Synopsys), 0-In Design Automation (now Mentor Graphics), Sequence Design Automation, and IP Extreme.

He also co-funded a fabless design center called, Magna Design Net, located in Okinawa Island in 2001, and is still maintains the position of auditor.

Prior to his consultant/advisor responsibilities, he was President & Representative Director of Nihon Synopsys K.K for 8 years. He increased Nihon Synopsys from $20M and 30 employees in 1992 to $110M with 200 employees in 2000.

Prior to Synopsys, he held various engineering/marketing positions at Fujitsu where his last position he served as General Manager within the Semiconductor Group.

He holds Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics from Waseda University and attended Fujitsu's graduate business school for senior management.