Last Thursday recap ✨
We brought together 100 of our most active TeamFirst members, alongside friends from the Soho House circle and Tokyo’s culture scene.
No panels. No stage. Just a curated room and four hours to use it well.
Founders next to operators. Investors next to creatives. Long-time members next to new faces.
That mix is the point. And it’s what made the energy different. And even though we ran out tags for the post but we want to thank every single one who joined!
Hosted with @sohohouse.tokyo ahead of their Tokyo opening, this felt like a step forward for us. TeamFirst is growing beyond a bilingual network into a true community platform built on trust.
The DJ kept the room moving. The Picante de la Casa helped. The @waterdrop.jp bevs helped hydrating💦 The conversations did the rest.
Missed this one? We’re just getting started.
#tokyo #community #networking #leadership #teamfirst
Looking forward to next week’s gathering with members across consulting, tech, and finance — and excited to welcome Eric Koslow as our special guest for the evening! 👏
Come by after work for drinks, light bites, and thoughtful conversations with an incredible community of people across industries and backgrounds 💭
Check out the event details and RSVP here:
/s5uwqxs2
Here's a sneak peak to our internal team's photoshoot from earlier this week 📸
A special thank you to Elias Dörstel for being our personal photographer, and keep an eye out to see the finalized photos! 👀
Following our event with Formslab, we're excited be hosting a casual happy hour bringing together professionals across consulting, tech, and finance — some of the fastest-moving and influential industries shaping the future today🍻
You'll get to meet others working across similar spaces, exchange ideas, and discuss industry-related topics!
Whether you’re looking to expand your network, reconnect with familiar faces, or simply unwind with interesting people after work, we’d love to have you join us 🙌
If you or your friends/colleagues would be interested, feel free to reach out or share them the RSVP link below:
/s5uwqxs2
Our internal TeamFirst team had a valuable experience today, getting the opportunity to learn from Janik Adorf 🎙 — a global public speaking coach and former Google presentation trainer.
This wasn’t your typical “sit and take notes” session. It was fully interactive — we were on our feet, working through exercises on voice, tone, pronunciation, and presence.
Through live demos, Janik showed how much delivery shapes the message — from how you open and close, to the context you provide, to how you use slides effectively.
Is the audience engaged? Did they gain something? Would they listen again?
A great reminder that speaking is less about sharing information, and more about creating value for the people in the room 👏
Thank you for such a fun and insightful session!
Today, the TeamFirst internal team gathered for lunch to celebrate the end of Elias’s internship with us — and the beginning of Ayano’s full-time journey🌱
Elias supported us across marketing and internal operations, playing a key role in keeping our community engaged and up to date. From shaping content and tracking metrics to refining what resonates with our audience, he helped us stay consistent — while also improving internal workflows and bringing structure and efficiency to our day-to-day operations.
Thank you, Elias, for the passion, energy, and light-hearted spirit you brought to the team every day ✨ We’re excited to see where your journey takes you next.
While we say goodbye to one teammate, we’re just as excited to welcome Ayano into her full-time role. Her presence has already made a big impact, and we’re looking forward to everything we’ll build together!
This morning, we hosted our fifth event for agentic AI with @openai , just hours after the release of GPT-5.5 at the International House of Japan, opening out to a beautiful garden filled with history and calm in the middle of the city.
Co-hosted with @xandhq , the room brought together founders, engineers, and product leaders building at the frontier.
Thomas Jeng and Tyler Ryu walked us through how OpenAI has evolved, and then took it a step further by demoing CodeX live, from a simple prompt to a working output.
With the laptops open, people tested in parallel, and questions were tied to real workflows and actual bottlenecks. Over sukiyaki bento boxes, the conversations were vibrant.
Thank you to Thomas, Tyler, and the OpenAI team, and to X& for building this with us.
Looking forward to the next one.
If you’d like to join our future events, please sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eyCpKGmw
#startups #ai #agents #teamfirst #tokyo #japan
Welcome to the team, Ayano Nakamura! 💫
Starting this week, we’re thrilled to have Ayano join TeamFirst as our newest Business Development Associate 🎉
Ayano has lived and worked across both Japan and the U.S., and is a graduate of Bates College. She previously built her career at Suntory Holdings Limited, gaining experience across marketing and sales in a global business environment.
What makes it especially meaningful is that Ayano was already part of the TeamFirst community; connecting with other globally-minded professionals and experiencing firsthand the value of the network built around people, not just opportunities. Joining our team was the natural next step!
Outside the office, you’ll find her exploring Tokyo’s food scene in search of great oysters 🦪, hotpot 🍲, or the next taco spot 🌮
Excited to have you with us, Ayano!
#TeamFirst #BilingualTalent #CommunityFirst
英語力を、ちゃんと活かせる環境で働きたい学生へ
We're hiring interns at TeamFirst.
As an intern here, you'll be doing real talent research and outreach work inside Japan's #1 bilingual leadership community. That means you'll see how global companies actually build their teams in Japan — before most people your age have even thought about it.
What you'll get out of it:
→ A real understanding of how recruitment and talent markets work
→ Practical experience using your bilingual skills where they're genuinely rare
→ Exposure to founders, investors, and operators across tech, finance & more
→ A network you'll still be using 10 years from now
What we're looking for:
→ Bilingual in English & Japanese
→ Currently at university
→ Curious about people, companies, and how organisations grow
Two roles open:
① Talent Acquisition Intern (research & outreach-focused)
② Talent & Marketing Intern
Location: Daikanyama, Tokyo
Contact: [email protected] or DM us here
Know someone perfect for this? Share this post or tag them below.
#Tokyo #インターンシップ #東京 #就活 #バイリンガル #TeamFirst #留学生
Numbers from our community, as of today.
Over 1,000 members. Average age 32. 51% women.
95%+ speak Japanese at business level or above.
31% are founders, C-suite, or VP.
Going through everyone reminded us what we have actually built here.
This didn't happen by accident. Years of careful curation, introductions
made at the right moment, and people who kept showing up.
The stat that's not in the dashboard: people here became actual friends.
Co-founders found each other. Investors met operators. Careers shifted.
When we hosted TF100 that was just the beginning of celebrating our community and we're building more ways to celebrate
the people who make TeamFirst worth being part of.
Stay tuned!
PS: Let's make this collage bigger, get a photo taken next time ;)
#teamfirst #tokyo #community #startups #japan
