Generally, Michiko Kato thinks again on the good challenges of her life.
She as soon as dropped every little thing in her native metropolis of Tokyo to attend Harvard Enterprise College in Massachusetts. At some point, she determined to go away her profession within the steady world of finance to enter the rocky terrain of startup life. That soar is what modified every little thing.
On Wednesday, Kato formally assumes her best problem but — CIO of Toyota’s Woven Capital and CEO of Toyota Invention Companions. The latter appointment makes her the primary feminine CEO of a completely owned Toyota subsidiary.
Woven Capital is the growth-stage enterprise capital arm of Toyota, targeted on backing founders constructing in mobility (together with house, cybersecurity, and autonomous driving). It final introduced an $800 million Fund II in August final 12 months (Fund I, additionally at a $800 million, launched in 2021), with plans to again not less than 20 new Collection B investments. Corporations in its portfolio embrace the satellite tv for pc firm Xona and the protection manufacturing infrastructure firm Machina Labs.
The agency seeks to search out the “future chief of mobility,” she mentioned, and goals to select corporations which can be “collaboration companions with Toyota.”
“We will co-lead, we are able to make small investments, or we are able to do an aggressive funding; we attempt to be versatile,” she mentioned. And as for her? “I need to be hands-on. I need to be beneficial to startups. And, I need to actually deal with the partnership creation.”
Kato this week isn’t alone in her promotion on the agency. Mia Panzer can also be transferring from her enterprise technique function at considered one of Toyota’s expertise subsidiaries to turn out to be COO of Woven Capital. Meaning not one however two of the highest roles at this company VC (CVC) agency shall be held by girls, a sign of how the male-dominated world of finance and investments is progressing.
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Traditionally, girls have performed (solely somewhat bit) higher at climbing the ranks at CVCs than at conventional enterprise companies. The final concrete knowledge, nonetheless, comes from a 2014 CBI report that mentioned that rather less than 20% of the highest CVCs had girls on their investing groups. The quantity was in contrast, on the time, to the truth that solely 7% of companions on the high 100 enterprise companies have been girls.
Right now, in enterprise, that quantity hovers round 15.4%, suggesting the share of ladies in funding roles at CVCs has elevated, too.
Kato joined the agency again in 2020 as one of many first new hires for what was then the newly spun-out Woven Capital. (It spun out from an in-house subsidiary of Toyota.)
She’s spent 15 years in investing total, together with on the M&A crew at Unison Capital and as CFO for the Japanese AI startup ABEJA. Since becoming a member of Woven, she’s led six investments (together with an undisclosed one) into startups just like the reusable rocket firm Stoke and the autonomous automobile firm Nuro, her first funding. She’s most excited by aeromobility, bodily AI, and {hardware}. “I believe we are able to basically remodel the way in which manufacturing is completed,” she mentioned of her imaginative and prescient for the CVC.
Working alongside her shall be Panzer, within the newly fashioned COO function. She’s going to be taking up finance, operations, HR, and authorized technique. She mentioned there are two issues each CVC is at all times frightened about — a company slowdown that kills offers and misalignment with the dad or mum firm. “My job is to basically assist with creating this via,” she mentioned.
She’s been working with Ro Gupta, Woven Capital’s managing director, since his days constructing the mapping firm Digicam again in 2019. She joined that startup whereas three months pregnant together with her first child to run finance. Beforehand, she was at Goldman after which on the pet wellness firm Unbiased Pet Companions (IPP). She mentioned she wasn’t actually trying to go away her job at IPP however determined to present Gupta and Digicam an opportunity.
“I actually like being a part of the startup world,” she mentioned.
Toyota’s tech subsidiary then bought Carmera (a sale she helped facilitate), and Gupta and Panzer joined that division. In December 2025, he turned managing director of Woven Capital and determined to carry Panzer alongside. Kato and Panzer report back to Gupta.
At first, Panzer didn’t suppose she was totally certified, however then she thought of how girls at all times say they aren’t totally certified for a job, whereas males simply soar in and do it. She considered a profession stuffed with assumptions about her, from the school recruiter who didn’t suppose she would have technical data as a result of she was a lady, to the pal at Goldman who informed her she wasn’t his competitors for promotion as a result of she was a lady.
She determined to only soar in, too.
“We discuss so much in regards to the Japanese idea of ikigai the place you deal with looking for one thing you’re good at, what you’re keen on, what the world wants, and what you will get paid for,” she mentioned, including that it feels full circle as generations of her household have labored in automotive elements. “I at all times say to different girls, ‘Allow them to have low expectations,” she mentioned. “Straightforward to overdeliver.’”
