George Hara is an archaeologist, tech entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. 

In the public sector in Japan, Mr. Hara served for over 10 years as Special Adviser to the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister, and as Intergovernmental Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to United Nations. He was the Chairman of Corporate Legislature Council of Ministry of Justice, Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Finance, the Prime Minister’s Special Commissioner on the Government Tax Panel, Advisor to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and a member of various government committees. In these capacities, Mr. Hara works to build a framework to commercialize and industrialize new technologies and to reshape the country’s fiscal health with a vision to create a thick layer of well educated, healthy middle class in the society.  

In private sectors, Mr. Hara was considered one of the most prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists in the 1990s. He founded DEFTA Partners in 1984, and himself became a Partner at Accel Partners in 1990. He has led more than twenty technology companies to success, such as Borland, PictureTel, SCO, Tradex, and Unify. Since 2000, Mr. Hara served as chairman of board managing a number of US, Israeli and UK tech companies including Oplus Technologies (Merged with Intel in 2005), Broadware (merged with Cisco in 2007), Transitive Tech (merged with IBM in 2008) and Fortinet (NASDAQ IPO in 2009).  

Through DEFTA Partners, Mr. Hara collaborates with leading universities and research institutions globally, commercializing technological innovations to drive the creation of new industries. In particular, he focuses on fostering the next generation of entrepreneurs and strengthening cooperation between Hong Kong and Japan. To this end, he established DEFTA Partners Hong Kong Office, aiming to reshape Hong Kong as China’s international innovation and technology hub. 

Mr. Hara authored numerous articles and publications, including the Japanese best-seller entitled 21 Seiki no Kokufuron (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in the 21st Century), published by Heibonsha in 2007, and Atarashii Shihonshugi (New Capitalism), published by PHP Institute in 2009.  

Hara’s vision encompasses the global dissemination of new technologies and innovative treatments, alongside promoting education and fostering a prosperous, well-educated middle class. His book, “The Wealth of Nations in the 21st Century”, has been translated into Chinese and published by the China National Academy of Governance, a prestigious institution for high-ranking government officials.  

Mr. Hara was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1952. After graduating from Keio University’s Faculty of Law, he became a Maya Civilization Archaeologist in Central America in the 1970s. Following this, he enrolled in the Stanford MBA Programme in California and received a Master of Science degree from the Stanford University Graduate School of Engineering after a period serving as a UN Fellow.  

In Yokohama, Japan, he established the Hara Model Railway Museum, which he dedicates to his late father Nobutaro whose lifelong hobby was to build and collect models of trains from around the world. 

Mr. Hara is a Global Agenda Council Member and a Meta Council Member of Inclusive Growth of the World Economic Forum (Davos Forum), and he served on International Advisory Council of SALK Institute. He has also previously served on the boards of the San Francisco Opera, University of San Francisco, Tokyo Foundation, Japan Society and the Hara Research Foundation.