Tokyo: Masayoshi Son elevated two SoftBank Group Corp. executives and an outsider to his inner circle, appointments that became official on Wednesday.
The board approved the nominations of Rajeev Misra, Marcelo Claure and Katsunori Sago as executive vice-presidents. Sago joined Misra and Claure as a board member after a shareholder vote at the general meeting in Tokyo.
The personnel changes mark the biggest overhaul in SoftBank’s top management since Son brought in Nikesh Arora from Google in 2014 and kicked off the telecom giant’s transformation into a strategic holdings firm.
Misra’s ties to SoftBank date back to 2014. He was hired as head of strategic finance from alternative-asset manager Fortress Investment Group LLC, which SoftBank has since acquired. The 56-year-old cut his teeth in proprietary trading at Deutsche Bank and has been singled out as driving the lender’s push into structuring and sales of exotic instruments. He leads SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund, a technology-focused private equity effort with backers including Saudi Arabia and Apple. Misra has been a SoftBank board member since June 2017.
SoftBank hasn’t elaborated on the exact portfolios of the new appointees and investors will be keen to find out how they fit into Son’s vision. “SoftBank is a very flexible organization, so you can expect their roles to evolve,” said Atul Goyal, an analyst at Jefferies Group.