This is a sponsored story, created and edited exclusively by Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Tokyo Updates website. In Marunouchi, one of Tokyo’s central business districts, a new model of digital work infrastructure is testing how people who face barriers to employment can contribute to real business needs, and to the city’s wider economy. For Takanari Ono, CEO of Valt Japan Co., Ltd., the question of work began in the pharmaceutical industry.
Before founding the company in 2014, Ono worked at a pharmaceutical company, where he believed medicine could improve people’s lives by stabilizing symptoms and supporting health. Then, at a patient advocacy group meeting, he heard something that changed his perspective. Around 30 people with mental health and developmental conditions were sharing their experiences.
Many said medication had helped them manage their symptoms. Yet one problem remained common to all of them: they still could not find stable employment. But it was not that simple.” That experience led Ono to create Valt Japan, with the vision of creating “an age of outstanding success for people who face barriers to employment,” broadly meaning people who want to work but face obstacles due to disabilities, illnesses, health conditions, or other circumstances.
Today, the company operates Next Hero, a business process outsourcing (BPO) platform that connects corporate work with employment support offices and workers across Japan. It also runs Next Hero DIC, or Digital Innovation Center, a network of directly operated digital work support centers. Ono sees the issue as economic as well as social.
Japan may face a labor shortage of about 11 million workers by 2040, according to Recruit Works Institute. Meanwhile, Ono says there are an estimated 15 million people in Japan who face barriers to employment. His question is how to build systems that allow more of them to participate in the labor market while creating value for companies.
Valt Japan’s Next Hero BPO business was built around a gap Ono saw between companies facing labor shortages, operational bottlenecks, and digital workforce demands, and people who want to work but often lack access to suitable business opportunities. Its focus is not on finding “easy” work, but on taking real business tasks and designing ways for people to contribute to them. That idea has taken a more direct form at Next Hero DIC Marunouchi, opened in partnership with Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd.
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