Clay Gary

Clay Gary joined Sozo Ventures in June 2024.

Clay is a Venture Partner of Sozo Ventures, and a Principal at Market Sense International, a Tokyo-based market entry and distribution consultancy.

Clay has been involved in general management, sales and marketing, and business development in Japan and Asia-Pacific since 1988. He spent the 1990s at Dentsu, Japan’s largest media and communications agency, where he developed Japan/APAC marketing communications strategies for clients including Mercedes, Apple, Nestle, Heineken and Toyota. During this period, Clay was a go-to source for media, including The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, for stories on Japan consumerism and authored a chapter on Japan consumer marketing for a business school textbook. An astonishingly average golfer, Clay was a founding management team member of Callaway Japan where he led the commercialization of the ERC Driver which disrupted the global golf industry and resulted in major revisions to both the USGA and R&A “Rules of Golf.” He was later Senior Head of Golf Japan & APAC for the Cobra Puma Golf division of Puma.

Clay’s business category experience spans sportswear and sporting goods, footwear, food & beverage, luxury goods, consumer electronics, synthetic materials and automotive. Clay has handled subsidiary and business start-ups and turn-arounds in both Japan and SE Asia, and has functional experience in manufacturing, import/export, logistics, trademarks, incorporation (Japan), and human resources.

Clay calls Japan home, but he also has boots-on-the-ground experience working, living, eating and drinking in China, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, The Philippines, Taiwan and Korea.

Clay is a graduate of Brown University with a BA in Literature.