Mr. Saidel (57) assists U.S., Japanese, Israeli, and European executives with business development, investment    strategy, and alliance management in technology-intensive industries. Since launching DSA in 1996, he has collaborated with global innovators to design and implement strategies across a variety of sectors, including medical technology, biopharmaceuticals, mobility, transportation, financial services, robotics, agriculture, homeland security, information technology, defense, and energy. 

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He assisted Pfizer’s launch of its first organic spinout, RaQualia Pharma Inc. (4579: JASDAQ Growth), helping its founding team raise $111 million in Japan and globally prior to an IPO. He was a member of the Board of Directors from July 2008 through March 2010. He is currently a Director of AskAt Inc., a biopharmaceutical venture based in Nagoya, Japan. 

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Mr. Saidel has spoken on decision making, investment, and technology policy at venues including the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the World Affairs Council, the U.S. National Intelligence Council, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Japanese Cabinet Office, the Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation, the University of Tokyo, and has chaired the Israel-Japan policy panel at the AIPAC Annual Policy Conference on several occasions. 

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He was a member of the first International Collaboration Advisory Council at the University of Tokyo for two years, a member of the Administrative Advisory Council at RIKEN: The Institute for Physical and Chemical Research, Japan’s largest scientific institution, for four years, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens for seven years. He was Japan Advisor to the Albert Einstein Foundation, Canada and Asia, and a Trustee of the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C. He is currently a Counselor at the Society. 

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Mr. Saidel first visited Japan as a student of poetry and literature in 1987. Following graduate school in political economics, he began his career as a policy aide to 21 members of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, working in Nagata-cho, Japan’s Capitol Hill, from 1990 to 1993. He returned to the U.S. in 1993 and consulted on U.S.-Japan dual use technology at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally-funded research and development center, prior to becoming an analyst on East Asia in the U.S. government. He was seconded to the Defense Department in 1996 and travelled to Japan with Secretary of Defense William Perry in conjunction with the Tokyo Summit between President Clinton and Prime Minister Hashimoto. 

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He speaks, reads, and writes Japanese and lived in Japan for five years. He earned a B.A. from Colgate University, a Certificate with Honors from Kansai University of Foreign Studies in Osaka, Japan, and an M.A. from Stanford University.