The founder returns: Tomoko Namba, and an AI pivot (2026)

A bet called the second founding

The implication of returning the founder to the presidency is that it was not a change to hold anyone accountable for results but a decision to walk back into the fire herself, on the far side of a large profit. Namba had handed management to Moriyasu in 2011 and to Okamura in 2021, advancing a generational handover twice. To swing that flow into reverse for once and return to a structure in which the founder stands at the front, for a fixed term, was likely because she judged that the speed of decision-making, and the drawing power to push back the market’s low valuation, had to be regained now, by her own hand. It is a bet fit to be called a second founding.

Whether the bet pays off hinges on whether the policy of concentrating resources on AI reaches beyond efficiency to give rise to new businesses. While holding up “permanent venture,” DeNA has faced the distortions of a culture in a hurry to grow — the loss of trust at WelQ, the 2021 change of president. This return, too, lies on the extension of the same problems: earnings that swing on a single title, and new businesses that never quite grow up. Can a way in which the founder leads change for a set period regain, at once, speed and challenge for a company that has matured — including a shift to a non-pyramid organisation? At the time of writing, the answer is not yet in.