Executive Search to Build & Scale Enterprise Technology in Japan
Who I Am
I’m Murray Clarke, Founding Partner of TalentHub, and for over twenty years I’ve been helping global technology companies build leadership teams in Japan.
At my last search business, which I sold to ManpowerGroup Japan, I was hands-on in search – leading Country Manager and functional leadership hires myself, while supporting my team through my senior network across Japan’s enterprise technology market.
I’m well known among the leaders of Japan operations for many global tech vendors, recognised for quality introductions that go beyond what “just another” recruiter can access. Over the years, several of my key-person IC placements went on to become highly successful Country Managers themselves – building success stories like Tableau and HashiCorp in Japan.
My VMware alumni network is strong, with many now holding Country Manager positions at companies like Snowflake, Datadog, Tanium, Workday, Confluent, Wiz, Automation Anywhere, and others.
While I’ve been successfully executing Japan searches from New Zealand, I’ve spent much of 2025 in Tokyo establishing our local entity – a longer process than expected. The Japan office is scheduled to go live by late January 2026, from which point I’ll begin building and scaling the Japan team.
I divide my time between Tokyo and Auckland, where my family lives. Many of the photos on this page were taken in Central Otago, the beaches of Auckland, or the streets of Tokyo – a visual mix of where I come from and where I work.
Trust Earned, Not Claimed
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Josep Garcia, APAC VP
“Impressive research and a job well done! Thanks for the great work.”
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Matt Young, APAC VP
“We almost exclusively found Murray to be our go-to recruiter. I highly recommend him.”
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Kate Berkeley, APAC Talent Acquisition
“One of the top recruiters VMware has worked with, across the whole of Asia Pacific. Exceptional.”
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Anthony Palladino, CRO
“Thanks for your work. Nice job! I appreciate you running at a very intense pace. ”
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Jon Robertson, APAC VP
“Murray has been a tremendous help in hiring dozens of individual contributors as well as key leaders”
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Gerry Sillars, APAC VP
“If you need someone to assist as you try to enter the Japanese market don’t look any further.”
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Keita Nozaki, Services Director
“Murray can build a strong relationship and he drives things very passionately.”
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Matt Thatcher, Global Sales VP
“His business sense and creativity helped fill a high level executive position in a relatively short period of time.”
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Patrick Cook, Director Innovation
“Murray has done outstanding work for PARC in a difficult talent space”
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Stephen Beck, Services VP
"Murray was invaluable. His advice, cultural guidance, and results were outstanding. I highly recommend him.”
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Goh Hattori, APAC Talent Acquisition
“Instrumental in hiring key people, including Country Manager, and delivering RPO”
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Sung Hae Kim, Global Head of People
Murray built our Japan team, securing key sales & engineering hires. High quality candidates, knows his stuff.
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Mathew Fleming, CEO & Founder
“Helped us lock in a key leader for Japan. Did an excellent job.”
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Barry Kent, Global Sales VP
“Excellent work to hire a key sales lead for our new all-flash product in Japan.”
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Brian Burns, Founding Partner
“I see Murray as the only recruiter that really understands the markets that he recruits into.“
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James Moore, Global Sales VP
“Very pleased with the outcome. Murray provided extremely helpful cultural guidance throughout.”
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TJ Chandler, APAC VP
“Great job Murray. Thanks so much for this. We are really happy with this hire!”
What I Do
I specialise in executive search for enterprise technology vendors entering or scaling in Japan, combining traditional high-touch recruitment with AI-powered sourcing and market intelligence through TalentHub’s proprietary platform.
On-Demand Search
For startups and scale-ups entering Japan, this model focuses on one-off leadership placements – typically the first Country Manager or critical early hires who shape local success.
Assignments under this model include Celonis, Darktrace, Rapid7, Recorded Future, DoiT, Fivetran, SolidFire, Fusion-io, Hortonworks/Cloudera, Pure Storage, SUSE, Veeam, CommVault, mabl AI, Zendesk, ServiceNow and many many more over the years.
Primary Agency Partnership
For established vendors expanding in Japan, I’ve acted as a strategic partner to support multiple leadership and key-person hires through successive stages of growth. This model builds consistency and alignment as local teams scale. Essentially, the “Go To” agent of choice.
I’ve worked in this capacity with VMware, Pivotal Software (Tanzu), Nutanix, Dell Technologies, Lenovo, and Splunk.
Coverage
Having helped establish VMware’s Software Division (later Tanzu), my search coverage spans a broad spectrum of enterprise technology domains:
Cloud & Infrastructure – VMware, Dell, Nutanix, Lenovo DCG and more
Data, Storage & Data Protection – CommVault, Fusion-io, SolidFire, Hortonworks/Cloudera, Veeam and more
Cybersecurity – Recorded Future, Darktrace, Rapid7, Splunk and more
Automation & DevOps – mabl AI, SUSE, Rancher, and more
Enterprise SaaS & GTM Scale – Zendesk, ServiceNow, Celonis, and more
I also collaborate with trusted partner agencies for adjacent fields including consumer technology, digital, e-commerce, and gaming. In effect, I operate as the business development lead for my partners.
My track record covers President and Country Manager appointments through to leadership roles as heads of Enterprise Sales, Partner Business, Marketing, HR, Services & Consulting, and Strategy & Operations.
Approach
My approach is transparent, data-driven, and grounded in real market insight – not just CVs. I work closely with regional and global executives to define what success actually looks like in Japan, then find the person who can deliver it.
Samples of Track Record
Here are some of the Japan Country Manager* and Senior Leadership placements made by stage of business.
Build
Fivetran, DoiT*, Fastly*, Veeam*, Commvault*, Recorded Future*, Rapid7*, Darktrace*, Fusion-io*, Medallia*, Alteryx*, WeWork*, mabl AI, and more
Scale
ZenDesk*, Celonis*, ServiceNow, Stripe, Nutanix, VMware
Lead
Splunk*, SUSE*, Dell Technologies, Nutanix, VMware, Lenovo
References:
Please feel free to request references, including any of the individuals featured in the Trust carousel above.
The following people are always open to provide references and are readily accessible on LinkedIn, or by request:
Josep Garcia, APAC GM - SUSE/Rancher
Matt Young, APAC VP - Nutanix
Jon Robertson, APAC VP - Snowflake, VMware
Goh Hattori, APAC Talent - Splunk, Dell-EMC
TJ Chandler, APAC VP - Fivetran
Anthony Pallidino, Chief Revenue Officer - mabl AI
James Moore, Global Sales VP - DoiT