Meet Our People
John Byrne (Founder and CEO)
John Byrne (Founder and CTO) moved to Japan in 2002 and has resided in Tokyo ever since. After finishing a diploma in Fibre Optics and Network Engineering, he later graduated with a degree in Software Engineering from Carlow Institute of Technology, Ireland. John joined Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) as a graduate where he worked on developing various in-house tools and scripts to automate benchmark testing later displayed on Sun’s web based intranet.
John is the founder and CEO of Ascent Global Partners (the company who owns and operates the careers.co.jp website). He has built, designed and maintains the website. In addition to his background in technology, John has developed a significant amount of senior relationships within the Japanese financial market where he has helped placed a number of Branch Managers, Managing Directors and Heads of Businesses into many global financial firms.. John speaks and conducts business in Japanese. Personally, John is very passionate about music and crossfit.
Michael Byrne (Founder and Senior Director)
Michael Byrne has worked in the financial industry for nearly 30 years. During this time, Hiro accumulated significant experience and contacts within the corporate and asset management industries both in Japan and overseas. Particularly so during his tenure at Macquarie Japan where his prime focus was capital raising and advisory for corporates in an array of different industries including, Tech, IT software, Biotech, Internet, E-Commerce, Gaming and a broad range of industrial companies.
Throughout his career, Hiro has developed a keen sense of understanding of corporate culture and this has helped him execute a number of prominent financial transactions. Personally, he is passionate about new challenges and his life-time hobby, surfing, gives him a new challenge every time he hits the beach. His most recent challenge is practicing Aikido and he believes any type of martial arts gives you discipline both physically and mentally. Aikido, in particular, gives a sense of understanding of Zen spirituality where you try to get in touch with your unconscious.
Jamal Shaladan
Jamal Shalada (Founder and Senior Director)
Jamal Shaladan (——) grew up in Cork Ireland. After finishing with a BSc in Biochemistry from University College Cork, Jamal decided to presume a career in other fields outside science and that’s when he joined Samsung as an Area Development Manager where he worked on maintaining the prestige image of Samsung and increased retail sales across the south east of Ireland. As he continued to progress he wanted to move to more international B2B sales and that’s when he started a new role in a boutique sales company. Following several promotions and excelling in his role Jamal decided to look for a more ambitious opportunity and that’s where his career at Ascent Global Partners has begun.
Jamal possess astute business understanding with experience in contributing in strategic planning, delivering improvement in processes and productivity.
