Karen Onuma-Mielke
Moving Technologies Across Borders, to the Markets That Need Them
Meet Karen Onuma-Mielke
Moving Technologies Across Borders, to the Markets That Need Them🌏
Born and raised in Munich with a Japanese mother, Karen Onuma grew up between two cultures, attending Japanese school on Saturdays and joining local schools during annual visits to Japan.
After studying in Germany and Malaysia, she moved to Japan and spent seven years in digital marketing and as an intercultural project facilitator, bridging global teams. A finding from her master's research stayed with her: a promising technology rarely succeeds on its own. Whether it takes hold depends on local conditions and on the people and organizations implementing it on the ground.
Today, as Co-Founder and COO of GlobalDeal, she works on that same problem with deep-tech companies entering new markets.
What are you currently building?
GlobalDeal, an execution platform for cross-border market entry. We get deep-tech companies their first pilots and customers in a new market, without hiring a local team.
Karen joined forces with Kevin (Koki) Nasukawa, GlobalDeal's co-founder and CEO, who was already helping Japanese companies expand globally. She had seen the problem; he saw that it was finally buildable. Together they shaped GlobalDeal into what it is today, taking on the practical work of cross-border expansion: navigating regulations, finding local partners, and running local execution.
At GlobalDeal, Karen leads operations, business development, and partnerships, working with deep-tech companies across Japan, the U.S., Korea, and Europe, particularly in sectors such as life sciences, climate tech, and innovative materials.
What excites you about Japan?
The opportunities within Japan's unique business environment. Language barriers and unfamiliar business practices often discourage international companies from entering Japan. Karen wants to close that gap by finding the right local partners and taking on the execution on the ground.
She's particularly interested in how countries' different priorities, from decarbonization to care for an aging population, can create opportunities for international collaboration.
A risk that changed your trajectory?
Leaving a stable job she enjoyed to build GlobalDeal. Karen had a fulfilling career running international projects and no pressing reason to leave. But she had carried the problem from her master's research with her ever since. Entrepreneurship came with uncertainty, but she wanted to work on that problem directly.
A habit that has had the biggest impact?
Showing up in person. Karen enjoys learning what others are working on and how, so she joins events across the U.S., Japan, and Europe and runs small gatherings of her own in Tokyo. That's also where she hears what companies are running into when they cross borders.
Advice for your 20s?
Don't wait for the perfect timing. Karen believes waiting for ideal conditions can mean losing valuable time. She encourages taking action while maintaining a reasonable safety net.
She also recommends looking abroad early. Between Silicon Valley, Japan, and Germany, she keeps seeing how much startup ecosystems and business practices differ, from how companies raise money to how partners decide who to work with. Those differences fascinate her, and adapting to each is one of the parts of her work she enjoys most.
Favorite restaurant in Tokyo?
Hacienda, a Mexican restaurant in Daikanyama