Schmidt has over 20 years' technology PR industry experience with leading technology companies in the United States and Japan. He came on board earlier this month and is reporting to the agency's managing parter Deborah Hayden.
Most recently, he headed communications at the Japan operations of Salesforce.com, an enterprise software leader in CRM, for over three years. Prior to that he headed the Tokyo office of technology industry communications specialist Text 100.
Schmidt started his communications career at Burson-Marsteller in New York, supporting media relations for clients such as Hitachi, Xerox and Sun Microsystems. Previous in-house roles include NEC Corporation in New York and PeopleSoft in San Francisco and Tokyo.
"Schmidt's technology and experience brings a wealth of divergent thinking to the Tokyo office and the Kreab Gavin Anderson network worldwide," said Deborah Hayden, managing partner in Tokyo.
Hayden added that the Japan market has a very strong relationship and trust culture.
"Schmidt's in-depth global, local experience and bi-lingual skills will make him an invaluable advisor to our clients both entering the Japanese market and venturing out internationally," she added.
