Mr. Shimamoto is a senior consultant with Signium International’s Tokyo Office. He holds many years in his extensive business career as a top executive of medium and large corporations engaged in marketing and manufacturing of petroleum, automotive and other industrial/commercial parts and products.

Prior experience includes 25 years at Mobil Oil, 11 years (1983-1994) of which were served as Director of Mobil’s affiliate (Mobil Sekiyu) in Tokyo and 9 years (1985-1994) as an outside Director of Tonen Corp. He joined Nippon Donaldson, Ltd. (a Japanese subsidiary of U.S. automotive parts maker) in 1997 as its Managing Director/CEO and contributed in its transformation from a traditional Japanese company to a market leader with global focus within 5 years.

He was recruited in early 2002 by a private equity company to rebuild and manage a bankrupt company dominant in the industry of pipe-fitting products (formerly Benkan and renamed Benex Corporation) as its CEO and successfully completed its turn-around in 2005 having it sold for a price far exceeding the value of the original capital injection. Since 2005, he has been retained by another private equity fund managing group as a counselor for turnaround of its acquired companies.

Mr. Shimamoto holds a BA in Economics from Keio University in Tokyo and an MBA degree from University of Washington in Seattle.