New York-listed investment firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co has promoted its Japan managing director and chief executive to chairman of Japan.

Shusaku Minoda will hand his former title of MD and CEO to Hirofumi Hirano, who joins KKR from AlixPartners Asia LLC where he was managing director and head of Asia financial service industry practice. Both appointments are effective April 15, 2013, KKR said in a statement released yesterday.

"Shu Minoda has led our business as CEO of KKR Japan for six years and has built an excellent platform for future growth.  As chairman, we look forward to his continued leadership in maintaining trusted relationships with our business partners and key stakeholders as well as in our government relation,” Henry Kravis, co-founder, co-chairman and co-CEO of KKR, said.

Joseph Bae, managing partner of KKR Asia added: “The appointment of Hiro Hirano as MD and CEO of KKR Japan is an important step forward as KKR continues to grow our private equity franchise and broaden our focus to other areas of asset management and capital markets."

"Hiro has a unique combination of private equity investing and operational consulting with a 30-year track record of helping Japanese companies revitalise their businesses and expand globally to achieve their full potential,” added Bae.  “He will lead our team on a day-to-day basis at KKR Japan as we build on the firm foundation that KKR has created in Japan."

Prior to joining AlixPartners, a turnaround specialist consulting firm,  Hirano was CEO of the merchant-banking group of Nikko Cordial Group (now known as SMBC Nikko Securities) and also chairman of Nikko Principal Investments.  During his career, he also served as a director of numerous companies, including Nikko Citigroup and Nikko Asset Management.

Founded in 1976 and led by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, KKR is a global investment firm with $75.5 billion in assets under management as of 31 December 2012.