John Clappier

John Clappier is a Partner, Capital Strategies at SoftBank Investment Advisers, based in London, where he focuses on the EMEA region. His role is distinct from direct investing: he concentrates on the mechanics of portfolio companies' transitions to public markets, working with founders on the process of becoming publicly traded assets beyond the IPO itself. He describes this as performing two functions — operational oversight and advisory work aimed at demystifying the private-to-public transformation. His framing of public markets centres on their foundational purpose of connecting risk initiators with providers of capital, rather than their association with algorithmic and high-frequency trading. He also serves as a Trustee at Sir John Soane's Museum.

Before joining SoftBank Investment Advisers in October 2019, Clappier spent over eight years as a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo. He moved to Japan originally after college to study Chinese archaeology in a feudal Japanese context, and subsequently built his career in finance there over several decades. He holds a degree from Princeton University. The source content does not specify the field or degree type of his Princeton qualification.