About

After working at Intelligence, now Persol Career, the founder of Spotted, Diego Utiyama, has held to a vision of building a leading company where employees can always be entrepreneurial and innovative, where technology plays a key role, and where client satisfaction is the main KPI. In 2016, he put his ambitious business plan into action and started offering recruiting and HR consulting services. Spotted K.K. was incorporated in April of the following year.

Initially Spotted placed top-level sales and engineering leaders at international software companies that were breaking into the Japan market. But the firm quickly expanded its focus to an area Utiyama is deeply passionate about: supporting Tech Startups with contingency and retained search services.

Through Spotted’s main brand Spotted Recruit, we are showing that Tech Startups are changing the world. Our consultants — who are all entrepreneurially minded — value every opportunity to work alongside founders, help them find great people who can bring them closer to realizing their goals, and watch their businesses grow and thrive. Spotted Recruit is a pioneer of startup recruitment in Japan, and our success and strength in the segment is unparalleled. While the brand started by offering services specifically to Tech Startups, we have grown to support the entire Startup Ecosystem, as well as Private Equity and Venture Capital firms.

In 2019, Utiyama executed the next phase of his plan and expanded into staffing solutions. Spotted Staffing, a haken temporary employment recruiting service, now benefits many major international firms working in IT and Finance by connecting them with the skilled staff they need on a contract basis. Then, in 2021, we further extended our service offering to include senior level retained search solutions for Japanese and Global corporations under the brand Spotted Executive.

With every new step, Spotted remains committed to ensuring that quality service underpins all of our ventures. Adoption of new technology and a strong emphasis on creativity are at the heart of this commitment.

Our sights are set on further expansion and new business ventures. As we continue to grow, everything we do will be rooted to our belief in the importance of providing only the highest quality service for everyone we work with.