A cross-border career partner connecting youth, regions, and the world.
— You'll never walk your cross-border career alone. —
For decades, the "right" career path in rural Japan was clear: get into a top university, land a job at a big company, stay there until retirement. That formula no longer holds.
In an era where work styles have diversified and choices have multiplied, what matters most is not "someone else's right answer"—
but the strength to choose, and to make that choice the right one.
In this VUCA era, young people need the inner resilience to walk on their own feet, without being swept away by the currents around them.
The young people we've worked with in regional Japan face four barriers that are hard to see—but unmistakably real.
If you don't know it exists, you can't act.
National-funded overseas programs, the hidden gems among regional SMEs—most opportunities are concentrated in major cities. Regional youth often don't even know they exist.
You want to act, but there's no stepping stone.
Without nearby role models, "what's normal" doesn't shift. Even when you take a first step, regional Japan severely lacks the supportive ecosystems needed to take a second and third step.
You want to go—but can't keep going.
Travel costs to urban events, time needed to access opportunities. Simply living in a regional area places a greater burden on those who want to keep challenging themselves.
Try something new, and you're isolated.
In regions where stability is the norm, new challenges rarely earn social support. Cheerleaders and mentors are often nowhere to be found nearby.
These walls aren't independent—they're tangled together. Which is why no quick fix works. We need places where these walls can be unraveled, slowly, in connection with one another.
What cohakuto does is simple.
For young people: delivering options they didn't know existed. Creating encounters with role models who've gone before them. Walking alongside them—not just for the first step, but for the steps that follow.
For regions: building new touchpoints between companies and youth. Beyond full-time hires, proposing project-based and other modern ways for people and organizations to engage.
We're the partners walking alongside the Spiral O-Turn—a career that circulates among region, Tokyo, and the world—building the "connective tissue" between youth, regions, and the world.
A circulation no single company can create on its own. Together with partners willing to cultivate the soil, we'll grow an ecosystem of youth challenge. That's the role of cohakuto.
Opportunity begins with a gap in access—a 35.3% experience gap by the time students graduate.
And even for those who make it out, the lack of work back home that uses their experience
means their careers lose their connection to the region. This individual disconnect eventually becomes the region's own challenge.
New graduates head to urban centers. Few return.
The talent pool for regional SMEs is drying up.
Businesses reach their limits. Bankruptcies are surging.
Nagoya's net out-migration of 20–29-year-olds to Tokyo: 2,962 people. The worst among Japan's government-designated cities.
Tokai 4-prefecture companies reporting full-time staff shortages—the highest level since the pandemic began.
Bankruptcies in the Tokai 4 prefectures in 2025 caused by labor shortages. Service and manufacturing hit hardest.
2026 new-graduate job opening ratio for SMEs. The old hiring playbook simply doesn't work anymore.
This loop won't stop on its own. If we let outflow continue, regional economies will keep shrinking.
That's why instead of trying to "bring youth back," we need a new mindset: keep them connected through a career that circulates between region, Tokyo, and the world.
Alongside walking with each young person individually,
we also update the "regional companies" and "career infrastructure" they engage with.
By improving the social environment around them, we cultivate the soil where more young people can confidently take the leap into the path they've chosen.
From sparking that first challenge, to connecting them with role models, to ongoing mentoring—we stand beside young people as they take their next step.
Changing the culture of regional companies. Building the infrastructure for cross-border careers. By updating the "container," we widen the options available to young people.
For the path out into the world, and the path to keep those experiences alive: Global Business.
For regional companies' power to meet and welcome young people: Local HR Support.
Two wings, together supporting the Spiral O-Turn.
Global Business / Cross-border Career Support
Helping young people from regional Japan break into the world—discovering, qualifying for, and making the most of global opportunities. We build the system that keeps their global challenge alive, even while they stay rooted in the region.
Local HR Support
Not "hiring" as the goal—but updating the very work culture of regional SMEs, advancing youth ambition and regional management challenges in the same move. From creating touchpoints, to side & remote work and long-term internships, all the way to the transition into full-time roles.
Three people who've each taken on challenges in their own field—region, Tokyo, and the world—
coming together to build the future of youth and regions.
Born in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture.
After founding the mental-health NPO CoCoTELI as a student, she moved to Tokyo and joined an HR startup, supporting recruitment for leading Japanese manufacturers, banks, and consulting firms.
She then launched a long-term internship program connecting students with regional SMEs, contributing to the program's growth.
In March 2026, she U-turned back to her hometown of Toyota and founded cohakuto Inc. In the same month, she co-founded incubation firm Itto Inc. and became its director.
As President of the International Youth Exchange Organization (IYEO), Kunisada leads a network of over 10,000 alumni from Cabinet Office youth exchange programs—decades of work in international youth exchange.
After working in IT outsourcing at Intelligence (now PERSOL), he moved into education and career-development, joining major Tokai-area education NPOs including Asknet and Asubashi.
He's also been involved in launching next-generation leader programs such as the Tokai Student AWARD.
Joined a Tokai education-sector organization as a student intern, eventually serving on its board. Long-time contributor to the Tokai Student AWARD.
As a new graduate, he joined the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks baseball club, where he spent three years in sales, project management, and people management.
He later moved back to Nagoya as Vice President of a regional sports business. At cohakuto, he leads business development and operations.
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