Tech MVP 2021: Ryuji Takemoto, AnyMind Group

Ryuji Takemoto

Managing director, product development
AnyMind Group
Japan

A product development expert, Takemoto cut his teeth working for various companies across mobile applications, games and news applications, along with a Japan-based ad network that he co-founded. He then joined AnyMind Group in 2016, where starting from the position of middle developer, he soon rose through the ranks to become managing director of product development. Today he is responsible for leading the product development team, which spans Tokyo, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City.

As the first engineer to join AnyMind Group, Takemoto has played an instrumental role in building AnyMind Group’s proprietary platforms, including the AnyTag platform, which he built from scratch and scaled its features and infrastructure. In the past year alone, the platform helped run over 1,700 influencer marketing campaigns. Users include marketing agencies, brands, influencer agencies and artist management agencies.

Since then, Takemoto has also been responsible for the development of AnyManager (a publisher platform used by over 1,200 publishers across Asia and serving more than 118 billion monthly impressions), the AnyCreator app (a mobile app for influencers), along with AnyMind Group’s D2C platforms including AnyFactory (cloud manufacturing) and AnyLogi (logistics management). He has also played a role in the strategic development of new products for cloud manufacturing and logistics management, and provides guidance for AnyMind Group’s advertising products for DOOH (digital out of home) advertising.

Products that Takemoto has developed for AnyMind are central to business growth. In 2020, the company achieved more than US$100 million in revenue (unaudited), with a 60% year-on-year growth rate.

Since joining AnyMind Group back in 2016, Takemoto has also built out the group’s engineering function/department, and has since grown it to over 50 engineers, data scientists, product managers and UI/UX designers based out of AnyMind’s tech hubs in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and India.

A highly effective leader, Takemoto strives to empower and bring the best out of all his teammates. He takes fresh fraduates under his wing and entrusts them with similar responsibilities as an experienced engineer. For experienced engineers, he gives them the opportunity to work across multiple products or projects based on their passions. Furthermore, when Takemoto first joined AnyMind Group, he could only speak Japanese, but with ambitions to build a multinational team, within a year, he could speak fluent English. This has inspired other Japanese engineers to pick up English to collaborate better with members from other nationalities.

Jury members noted Takemoto's keen ability to create and scale products, as well as his strong leadership and collaborative approach, with plenty of initiatives and programs to develop his team.