Yoko Okamoto
Director, Japanese Division
TKO Personnel, Inc.
Reed purchased TKO, a San Francisco recruiting firm, in 1983 and re-built it into the first American-based Japan/US focused recruiting firm. TKO has deepened and narrowed its recruiting since then to the semiconductor, software, and general high-technology industries, still dealing only with bicultural/bilingual and international positions.
Reed grew up "bi-cultural" himself in the Pennsylvania Dutch (Mennonite/Amish) town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, graduating from Eastern Mennonite College (BA English Literature) and then doing a three-year tour as an English teacher in Hokkaido, Japan, through the Mennonite Church. He spent ten years as a journalist before purchasing TKO.
Yoko Okamoto
Director, Japanese Division
TKO Personnel, Inc.
Okamoto joined TKO as manager of the South Bay Office in 1989, specializing in high-tech sales to the Japanese business community. In 1992 she was promoted to Director in charge of all services to Japanese firms in California.
Okamoto is from Kobe and graduated from Kobe University, graduating with a BS Earth Science degree. She began her career with Kyocera America in San Diego, advancing to Senior Production Controller of ceramic chip packaging. She then moved to a Japanese start-up manufacturer of disk drives before coming to TKO.
Mukesh Ahuja
Manager, Software Recruiting
TKO Personnel, Inc.
Ahuja joined TKO from Digital Equipment, where he worked in artificial intelligence and business applications. His last position there involved work with Digital third-party vendors and VARs in porting their software to Open VMS and Windows NT. He also spent a year in Digital's Tokyo office marketing and engineering office application products.
Ahuja earned his undergraduate degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay and his MS in software engineering and business from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At TKO he manages software recruiting.
Ronald C. Bretherton
Manager, Semiconductor Recruiting
TKO Personnel, Inc.
Bretherton's connection with Japan began with his three-year study of Aikido. In 1984 he joined the Tokyo-based Sanwa Research, Ltd., as a Technical Recruiter, before founding his own recruiting firm in 1987, recruiting for U.S. Electronics firms in semiconductors, telecommunications, and software. After 10 years in Japan, he has returned to the Bay Area to manage TKO's semiconductor recruiting efforts.