Company

Ken Iida

Founder and CEO, NuRetail

Profession

Ken Iida, started his career at the Embassy of Japan to the United States of America in Washington, D.C.

After finishing a summer internship at ESCAP, United Nations in Bangkok, Thailand, he returned to Japan to start a Strategy Consulting career at Accenture Japan.

He went on to develop a career in retail, holding several key lead positions such as Head of Merchandising, Merchandising Planning, eCommerce, Supply Chain to name a few at Walmart Japan / Seiyu and Toysrus Japan. At his next stop, Walt Disney Company Japan, he led the entire Direct-To-Consumer Retail organization (Disney Store and shopDisney) including Merchandising, Store Operations, eCommerce, Marketing, Branding, Digital, Supply Chain, HR, Finance, Accounting, and General Administration before joining LAOX as COO in November 2020.

Ken joined LAOX, a Tokyo Stock Exchange listed public retail company, in November 2020, got promoted to CEO in March 2021 and held the President role of Laox Holdings until he resigned at Shareholder’s Meeting in Mach 2023. 

In his 13-year retail career, he has been working on omnichannel initiatives, e.g. Net Super (Grocery eCommerce combined with Ship-from-Store), Fulfillment Center development, logistics network development, new eCommerce platform implementations (3 times), marketplace launch, BOPIS introduction, Store Inventory Locator introduction, and so forth. He is also well networked with global startup communities, and often, the first user of foreign SaaS products in Japan.

Retail segment wise, he has travelled across the wide merchandising spectrum from fast-moving, transactional Fresh Foods, Grocery, Drugs, Electrical Appliances, Stationaries, to more experience-based, Toys, Babies, Apparel, Beddings, Sports, and to extremely immersive and 95% privately produced Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars products.

Ken has launched a RetailTech startup, “NuRetail” centering around Asia Sunshine Market, a very first one-stope Asian Grocery Specialty he founded while at Laox, and MBOed from Laox Holdings upon his resignation. NuRetail aims at generating SaaS based digital products and services.

Ken Iida has a Bachelors degree in Economics from Sophia University in Tokyo, spent two semesters as an Academic Exchange at Salzburg College, Austria, and holds a Masters degree in International Relations from Yale University, New Haven, CT, the United States.