Session 2 of 2 · A Practical Guide to Partnering with Japanese Universities Oct 28, Nashville

The Investment Side: Endowments, Co-Investment, Security and Spinouts

Wednesday, October 28, 2026 | 9:40 am – 10:45 am CDT

Hybrid event — in person in Nashville and live on Zoom

Academic partnerships and capital go together. This session looks at the investment side of the equation: incentives, cognitive biases, and alternatives to the "standard endowment model." We then discuss the payoff for getting it right: joint research, commercial spin-outs, and fecundity.

We also address the security angle head-on. Where a research partnership touches dual-use technology, the choice of partner matters — and in almost every case where a school partners with China, there is a Japanese alternative. Panelists discuss how to evaluate that trade-off honestly and why it matters not just to engineering departments, but to our societies at large.

What we'll cover

Endowments and Japan: attitude, allocation and governance
Co-investment and joint research with engineering departments
The China angle: research security and dual-use technology
How the government can help
Case study: a Japanese deep-tech university spin out moving to Tennessee
Wrap-up and Q&A
Charge: "NIL for Japanese scientists"

Speakers in this session

Thierry Porté

Managing Director & Vice Chairman, J.C. Flowers & Co. · Chair, U.S.–Japan Bridging Foundation · New York / Tokyo

Thierry Porté is a Vice Chairman and Managing Director of J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC, a global private equity firm focused exclusively on financial services. In this capacity, he currently serves as director of the J.C. Flowers Asset Reconstruction Company, a Mumbai-based non-performing loan platform; the director of CXDA, a digital asset platform; on the board of LMAX, a global financial technology company; and on the boards of OneItalia, an Italian insurance brokerage group, and Monte dei Paschi France Banque, a French lending specialist.
In a personal capacity he is a Co-Founder and Senior Advisor of Reimei Global Advisors, Inc.; Senior Advisor of Equita, a Milan-based investment bank; Director of Acta Pharmaceuticals and Alryxo, Boston-based biotechnology companies; and Director of NyuuLy, a Japanese information platform. He has led successful investments in OneLife Insurance, Equita SIM, Fidea NV, Eurovita SpA, Acuon Corporation, Financière CEP, and Chi-X Asia Pacific.
Mr. Porté worked previously at Shinsei Bank, Ltd., Tokyo, and at Morgan Stanley in New York, London and Tokyo. Mr. Porté holds a BA in Economics from Harvard College, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and an MBA with high honors and the designation of Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School. He has held leadership roles in a number of Harvard-related activities, including serving as President of the Harvard Club of Japan (1995- 2008). He is a member of the Harvard Business School Board of Dean’s Advisors and the Harvard Global Advisory Council. He serves as Chairman of the U.S. – Japan Bridging Foundation. He is a Founder and Chair of Asia Society Japan and a Global Trustee of Asia Society. He served on the Board of Trustees of Regis High School from 2009 to 2015 and continues to serve on the Regis Investment Committee, as well as the Investment Committee of the Missions of the Society of Jesus. He served as Chair of the U.S. – Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange and the Japan – U.S. Friendship Commission from 2007 – 2013, positions designated by the President of the United States. Full bio →

David Salem (invited)

Managing Director, Capital Allocation, Hedgeye Risk Management · United States

David Salem is Managing Director of Capital Allocation at Hedgeye Risk Management. Prior to joining Hedgeye in early 2023 as its inaugural Managing Director of Capital Allocation, David served as founding President and Chief Investment Officer of The Investment Fund for Foundations (TIFF) and as a partner at GMO, working with Jeremy Grantham on investment solutions for large institutional funds. David received a JD cum laude from Harvard Law School and an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was elected a Baker Scholar. A member of the District of Columbia Bar since earning his JD, David has held adjunct faculty positions at Middlebury College, from which he earned his undergraduate degree summa cum laude, and the University of Virginia, and served in the White House Counsel’s office while enrolled at Harvard. David's speaking schedule has included talks at numerous colleges and universities, including Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, MIT, Middlebury, Northwestern, and Oxford, and at conferences organized by the Association of Governing Boards, the CFA Institute, the Council on Foundations, the Foundation Financial Officers Group, the London Business School and NACUBO among other organizations. David's extensive volunteer labors have included service as a trustee of Middlebury College, the Center for Effective Philanthropy, the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and the Core Knowledge Foundation, and as a 15+ year member of the investment committee of The Atlantic Philanthropies. Full bio →

Temma Abe Joining from Japan

Kyoto Fusioneering · Kyoto / Tennessee

Temma Abe is Corporate Secretary and an Officer of Kyoto Fusioneering America (KFA), the U.S. subsidiary of Kyoto Fusioneering, a Kyoto University spinout that develops plant engineering technologies for commercial fusion energy. As part of KF's global finance team, he oversees corporate affairs for North America, including investor relations for the company's Series D fundraising and corporate governance, as KFA establishes its U.S. headquarters in Tennessee and builds the UNITY-3 fusion test facility with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Temma's career has been built on connecting Japanese business with the U.S. market. He began at Mitsubishi Corporation and later worked as a strategy consultant at Accenture before earning his MBA at UC Berkeley. He then held senior finance roles at Mercari US, the American arm of Mercari, which is widely regarded as Japan's first startup unicorn. He has lived in the U.S. for more than seven years, helping Japanese companies grow here. He also writes about U.S. technology trends for the Tokyo-based venture firm Coral Capital. Temma holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Tokyo. Full bio →

Yohei Yamada

Partner, Mission Value Partners · Academic Specialist, IRCN, University of Tokyo · Tokyo / Nashville

Yohei Yamada is a Partner at Mission Value Partners, a Nashville-based investment firm specializing in Japanese equities, where he has covered Japanese companies as research analyst since 2013. He previously served as a Japan equity strategist at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities in Tokyo, where his research was cited in the Financial Times, Nikkei, and Barron's. Alongside his investment career, he conducts research in computational neuroscience at the University of Tokyo's International Research Center for Neurointelligence (WPI-IRCN); his work on predictive learning in brain-inspired spiking neural networks was recently published in the Nature Portfolio journal Communications Biology. His U.S.–Japan story began early: he grew up in Maryville, Tennessee from ages 8 to 15 before returning to Japan.

Paul Burdette

U.S. Congressional Staffer · Washington, D.C.

Paul Burdette has advised on Indo-Pacific and international cyber and technology policy in the United States Congress since 2018. During this period, he has drafted and introduced numerous bills enhancing the U.S. government’s ability to compete in cyber and emerging technologies overseas, including quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, subsea cables, and advanced cybersecurity. He has also led congressional efforts supporting and strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance through legislation and congressional oversight.
Paul is an inaugural member of Keidanren’s Next Generation Japan Salon and has been recognized by the National Bureau of Asian Research as a U.S.-South Korea Next Generation Leader.
Paul earned his master’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, where he received a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship for Mandarin Chinese. He later shifted to Japanese, recently passing the N2-level Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT).
Paul also has transatlantic experience. He is fluent in German and received a Fulbright scholarship to Germany from 2016-2018. In Berlin, he worked at Global Bridges e.V., a non-governmental organization convening high-level engagements between global policymakers and business leaders, where he focused on German-Chinese relations.

Andrew McDermott

President, Mission Value Partners · Host and moderator · Nashville

Andrew McDermott is the founder and President of Mission Value Partners, a Nashville-based investment firm specializing in Japanese equities. He has moderated U.S.–Japan programs with the Tennessee World Affairs Council and leads the Takahashi/Alexander Scholarship initiative recognizing Tennessee–Japan collaboration.

David Baeckelandt

Director of Business Development, Winged Keel Group · New York

Focus and Experience
Dave Baeckelandt is a Director of Business Development at Winged Keel Group, a New York-city headquartered firm focused on tax efficient investing in alternatives for family offices. Earlier, Dave led sales at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management Americas, Inc. (“TAMA”) to U.S. pensions, non-profits, and family offices. Immediately prior to joining TAMA in early 2022, Dave spent nearly six years at Cambridge Associates (“C|A”) in Boston. In that role, Dave sold C|A’s services and tools to LPs in North America, Japan, and Benelux. Dave began his career (after working as an interpreter and translator) at the predecessor banks of Mitsubuishi UFJ in 1988. As an Investment Specialist, Dave sold funds to Japanese transplants in the U.S. After six years in New York, Dave joined
William Blair & Co., where over the next eight years he set up and ran the first dual-licensed, foreign investment advisory firm in Japan. Following his return to the U.S., Dave worked in private equity for three years before leading Mercer Investment Consulting’s Analytics and Research Group.
Outside the office Dave has played an active leadership role in several non-profit organizations. These include the Japan America Society of Chicago (Executive Board, Board of Directors, 2000-2012 ), Belgian Publishing Inc. (President and Chairman of the Board 2012-2014), and the Nederlandse Taalunie (on the US Advisory Board of the Belgian-Dutch non-profit since 2013). Periodically Dave has served as a speaker on the nexus between finance and history and also as a moderator on professional panels. Select past speaking engagements have included talks on “Chicago’s Financial Firsts” and “Japanese Financial Art”. Dave lives in Glenview, IL (with his wife and children).

Education and Professional Credentials
MA, University of Illinois (Urbana)
BA, University of Illinois (Urbana)
Japanese language, Konan University (Kobe, Japan)
Passed FINRA Series 3 (NFA), 6, 7, 63, 65, 9, 10, 24, 79