Space Data Appoints Takayuki Hodate, Former Executive CHRO at Akatsuki, as Chief Community Officer (CCO)

Space Data Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Koyo Sato; hereinafter 'Space Data') announces the appointment of Takayuki Hodate (Hoda Takayuki) as its new Chief Community Officer (CCO) in June 2026.

This appointment is designed to strengthen the company’s management structure by overseeing the corporate-wide strategy 'Community Transformation,' which aims to fundamentally reshape the organization by starting from community engagement, and to promote co-creation, talent development, and business opportunities rooted in community participation.

Background of the Appointment

Space Data is rapidly expanding its business across space, defense, and industrial domains, with the core mission of building a planetary-scale physical AI infrastructure. The expertise required in these fields—ranging from aerospace engineering and AI to national security and urban development—is highly diverse and exists not within a single company, but is dispersed throughout society.

To date, Space Data has operated multiple communities, including the research community 'Singularity Lab,' generating real-world co-creation initiatives and attracting new talent through engagement with researchers, engineers, and practitioners. Building on these experiences, the company has positioned 'Community Transformation'—a fundamental shift in organizational design centered on communities—as a corporate-wide strategy. It will systematize community operation insights developed across business units into a shared, company-wide foundation.

The appointment of a CCO is intended to lead this transformation and establish a repeatable, systematic framework for generating co-creation, talent, and business opportunities from communities—moving beyond serendipity to scalable impact.

Role and Expected Impact of the New Position

Hodate brings extensive experience from NEC, where he worked in business planning, and from Accenture Strategy Group, where he served as a management consultant. At Gree, he led strategic expansion of new business areas, government and industry association relations, public relations, CSR, and business investments. Later, at Akatsuki, he transitioned from business leadership to human resources leadership, eventually becoming an Executive Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), supporting corporate growth from both business and organizational perspectives. In 2020, he founded enBright Inc., a company specializing in organizational development, providing organizational design and HR system consulting based on adult developmental theory and integral theory to multiple corporations, from large enterprises to startups.

Since 2024, Hodate has served as an Organizational Strategy Advisor at Space Data, leading the design of organizational structures and operational systems. He has advanced the creation of an organization that balances business unit autonomy (centrifugal force) with a shared corporate foundation (centripetal force), establishing mechanisms to circulate community insights across the company.

As CCO, he will oversee the planning and execution of company-wide organizational and community strategies, systematize operational insights from various communities, build a shared foundation, generate co-creation initiatives, business opportunities, and talent acquisition from communities, and ensure trust relationships with participants. Acting as a nexus between management and business units, he will drive Space Data’s growth from the perspectives of people and knowledge.

Statement from the Appointee

Space and national security are domains that cannot be mastered by the efforts of a single company alone. I believe that challenges of this scale can only be solved when knowledge—dispersed across research institutions, industries, and individual explorers—comes together.

Throughout my career, I have worked on both building businesses and building organizations. From this experience, I am convinced that exceptional knowledge cannot be gathered by 'enclosing' it. Knowledge gathers only when we design spaces where individuals want to participate for their own reasons—for exploration, for learning, for their careers. My goal is to create communities where each participant’s sense of purpose overlaps with Space Data’s business mission.

To achieve this, a clear order must be upheld: value for participants must come first, and business outcomes follow as a result. Communities that reverse this order will inevitably wither. I believe that placing trust with participants above all else is the CCO’s most critical responsibility.

At the same time, operations dependent on the passion of specific individuals are not sustainable. Just as Space Data aims to build self-operating systems in space, I aim to design communities as autonomous systems that continue to learn and evolve even as people change. I will actively leverage AI to systematize knowledge and ensure operational reproducibility, so that human effort can be focused on uniquely human activities—asking questions, engaging in dialogue, and building trust. With AI supporting the systems and humans driving co-creation, I intend to cultivate communities into Space Data’s enduring foundation.

Profile of Takayuki Hodate (Hoda Takayuki)

Chief Community Officer (CCO), Space Data Inc.

An organizational designer who has integrated expertise across business, strategy, and HR to transform collective human and intellectual capital into functional business systems.

After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Hodate joined NEC in 2001. He worked in business planning for internet services, then served in the Overseas Business Planning Division, supporting strategic planning for NEC subsidiaries across the Asia-Pacific region. From 2009, he worked at Accenture Strategy Group as a management consultant. Starting in 2012, he joined Gree, where he led the strategic planning and execution of new business expansion, government and industry relations, public relations, CSR, and business investments.

In 2016, he joined Akatsuki Inc. After serving as a leader in the Live Experience business, he became Head of Human Resources in 2018 and was appointed Executive Officer and CHRO in 2019, overseeing the formation of executive teams and HR strategy to support business growth. In 2020, he founded enBright Inc. with the purpose of 'creating ways of working that make life shine,' serving as its CEO. From 2022, he served as Executive CHRO at BitStar Inc., supporting organizational development and HR system design for multiple large corporations and startups.

Since 2024, he has participated in Space Data Inc. as an Organizational Strategy Advisor, leading organizational design and operational system development. In June 2026, he assumed the role of CCO. He will oversee the cross-functional strategy and execution of communities operated by each business unit, build platforms for co-creation and talent acquisition, and drive the integration and commercialization of specialized knowledge in space, defense, and industrial domains from both human and organizational perspectives.

Future Outlook

As Space Data expands its operations across space, defense, and industrial domains, the company believes that the organizational capability to continuously connect with distributed expertise in society will be the foundation of sustainable growth.

Starting with this CCO appointment, the company will promote 'Community Transformation' across the entire organization, systematizing community operation insights and building a shared foundation. It will establish repeatable systems for generating co-creation, talent, and business opportunities from communities, accelerating its mission to realize a society where 'space is accessible to everyone.'