About Us

Ayaka Matsui

Ayaka Matsui

Consultant

New York, USA

Ayaka Matsui is a bilingual (English & Japanese), bicultural marketing strategist, specializing in cross-cultural marketing. Ayaka’s has a passion for helping brands that are expanding and growing in unfamiliar international markets through digital communication.

She works closely with Japanese brands expanding into US market and global brands entering Japanese markets. Whether helping startups and Fortune 500 companies launch new products or assisting a global fashion brand in develop a new digital marketing strategy to enter the US market, she leverages her diverse background to help brands reach their target audience in an authentic way and expand globally. As a dynamic and goal-focused professional, she utilizes a unique combination of creativity, passion for brands, international experience and teamwork to design and execute solutions that create customer value.

Ayaka’s specialties include

  • Market Research & Analysis
  • Marketing & Branding Strategy
  • Cross-cultural Communication Strategy
  • Brand Localization
  • Production: Online and offline campaigns (i.e., events and tradeshows)
  • Strategic Partnerships
  • Go-to-Market & Growth

In addition to her consulting projects, Ayaka often gives seminars and workshops on cross-cultural communication, marketing, and branding strategy for both Japanese and American companies.

Ayaka is currently based in New York, while traveling frequently to San Francisco and Tokyo to work with global companies. She has her own cross-cultural marketing agency AYDEA. At her previous job, Ayaka was Director of Strategy Consulting at btrax, Inc., consulting & creative agency based in San Francisco, CA. She has worked at Rakuten HQ as an e-commerce consultant, assisting over 150 Japanese businesses with their B2C marketing strategy and digital commerce operations in Japan.

Ayaka was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She studied at Boston University with an exchange study in the UK and Switzerland. She worked in Shanghai and Tokyo, before moving her base to San Francisco, New York and beyond.