50 Leaders in Law - Volume 5

Anthony Luna: Where Career Transformation Meets Innovation

Anthony Luna did not set out to become a legal leader in Japan. His journey began far from corporate boardrooms, shaped instead by practical necessity, early responsibility, and courage to step into unfamiliar territory - the kind that could unsettle many, yet reveals its value only to those committed to excellence and continued self-transformation.

He grew up in circumstances that necessitated early independence. Having financed his higher education entirely on his own, not uncommon in the U.S., for him law was initially a dream calling. But it was one with significant personal financial risk if he failed to succeed. It was also a rational decision - one of the few professions that offered both financial flexibility and, importantly, the opportunity to be useful to others. His commitment to doing work that mattered would remain a constant throughout his life.

Despite being a familiar figure in Japan’s legal community today, Anthony’s connection to the country was anything but inevitable. His first encounter with Japan came unexpectedly in high school, when a Japanese-American friend invited him along on a family trip to Tokyo and Okinawa. At the time, it felt incidental - an interesting summer experience, nothing more. Only years later would that early exposure reveal itself as the opening chapter of a much longer story.

Years later, that early encounter with Japan resurfaced in a practical way. Looking for initial employment after university - and to grow and experience life beyond California - Anthony applied to overseas English-teaching programs in both Europe and Japan. He was selected for the Japanese government’s JET Programme (Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme), an initiative that places young professionals in schools and local governments across the country to support education and international exchange.

Anthony was initially assigned to a high school in Yokohama, but after intensive self-driven Japanese study and later successfully passing the Level 1 Japanese Proficiency Exam after approximately two years of self study, he transitioned into Yokohama City Government, working directly with the mayor’s office at the Office of International Relations. What began as basic support on international matters quickly evolved into a far more demanding role. He found himself taking an active role in meetings including senior local politicians, mayors and chambers of commerce presidents, executives from Japan-based companies, and visiting U.S. military officials - often as the youngest person in the room, and often the only foreigner on the Japanese side of the table. One of his first assignments was to help greet and interpret for the former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale and the Mayor of Yokohama City, a great moment for him that also humbled him and made him realize how much more he would need to grow in so many ways.

“That was actually one of my first assignments. I didn’t do very well, to be honest - but the experience opened my eyes - both to the opportunities ahead and to how much I still had to learn, and how quickly I would need to grow to be a professional in any setting.”

His time in Yokohama became an accelerated education in how politicians and senior leaders operate: how agendas and meetings are choreographed, how trust is built, and how in Japan decisions truly get made. That learning took on added weight during the Kobe earthquake recovery, when Yokohama played an active role in supporting the city’s response within Yokohama City. Working alongside the mayor’s office - which had deep expertise in infrastructure and disaster resilience - Anthony helped bridge language gaps in critical communications involving foreign residents and public officials at a time when clarity mattered deeply. It was a formative period: part public service, part apprenticeship in leadership in an emergency.

Momentum was building, but the arrangement was never meant to last. His role with the city was fixed-term, and just as he was finding his rhythm, the question of what came next arrived. The city encouraged him to stay longer by offering a permanent position and an opportunity to work in their New York representative office - rare at the time. Private-sector roles were also available where he received attractive financial offers at major companies, particularly for someone his age at the time; however, one of his mentors urged him to be patient and think longer-term: build a core professional skill, earn formal credentials, and give himself flexibility for the future. Anthony listened. He returned to the United States for law school, knowingly stepping away from the career momentum he had built for a more durable foundation. 

“A senior Japanese mentor of mine told me: you should build a core expertise and get formal credentials. That will give you more flexibility and options in the future. You will be your own voice at the table, not someone else’s voice. I listened to that advice. But it required a leap of faith to pass up attractive employment opportunities right in front of me and instead commit to another self-funded 3 years of law school in a very competitive environment with no guaranty of success.”

It proved to be sound advice. After graduating from USC Gould School of Law, he joined a large international law firm at the time Graham & James (now Squire Patton Boggs) and quickly moved by himself from Los Angeles to launch his career as a corporate lawyer in Silicon Valley. This marked a significant professional milestone. Practicing law in Silicon Valley meant competing at the highest level in one of the world’s most demanding legal markets. Anthony immersed himself in the startup ecosystem, working on venture financings and mergers while advising companies trying to build entirely new industries. He gravitated toward complexity and scale, often saying he enjoyed bigger challenges and working directly for CEOs and management teams. His career progressed, and his reputation grew both internally and externally.

One of the key highlights of that period was the chance to work closely with a senior partner who was not only a leader at the firm but also a venture fund partner and a founder of a well known angel investor group. Beyond legal work, even though Anthony was a very junior lawyer, he was often asked to sit with founder CEOs much senior to him, help with business plans, and listen to and critique numerous early stage financing pitches. It was the kind of direct exposure you only get at the epicenter of Silicon Valley - the kind of inovation and business exeperience that most lawyers cannot gain in their normal practice. And it was fun. 

Japan re-entered his life professionally in 2004, when his firm asked him to relocate to Tokyo.

Looking back, the move now feels almost inevitable - a return to a country that had quietly shaped him early on. But at the time, nothing was certain. He loved Silicon Valley. His career was progressing. Japan represented disruption, not destiny. Why move?

“When they first asked me to go to Japan, I said no. I loved Silicon Valley. But then I decided - it’s only two years, and I like Japan. So I went.”  

Two years was the plan. What followed was something entirely different. Anthony ended up rebuilding his practice from the ground up - reactivating his Japanese after years away, establishing himself with local clients, and adapting his Silicon Valley experience to a very different market. Much of what came easily in California, from venture structures to equity incentives, required entirely new approaches in Japan. It demanded sustained effort. At the same time, particularly after his move to Jones Day Tokyo, where he would ultimately become a corporate and M&A partner, he began taking responsibility for clients’ full Japan operations, and his work expanded beyond transactions into broader commercial and strategic advisory roles for Japanese companies.

Anthony could not have known that this decision would anchor the next two decades of his life. But by the time he found his footing again, he had built a respected practice in Tokyo and achieved what many lawyers work their entire careers toward: partnership at a global firm, deep deal experience, and an international profile.

“I don’t compete with others - I compete with myself. It’s important for me to feel that I’m growing, that I’m getting better.”

It was from that position of stability that he made his next unexpected move for further transformation.

Leaving for IBM, one of the most respected and largest foreign companies in Japan, was not an obvious step. Since early on, partnership had been his ultimate career goal. He had a young child, ongoing financial obligations, and little margin for career missteps. But IBM offered something fundamentally different: proximity to cutting-edge technology, exposure to business operations at scale, and the opportunity to learn how large organizations actually function from the inside.

“It wasn’t an easy decision. I thought about it for over a year. But I felt there were skills I still needed to learn - how to run a team, how business really works inside a company.”

The first six months inside IBM were deeply uncomfortable. He arrived confident - a former law firm partner accustomed to being the expert in the room. Instead, he discovered that legal knowledge alone carried limited weight. Decisions were driven by financial metrics, operational realities, and internal systems invisible to outside counsel. Much of this he understood intellectually, but living it day to day was a different experience entirely. They spoke a completely different IT and financial language. Anthony had to relearn how contracts flowed through billing processes, how revenue was operationalized, how the IT business worked at a detailed level, and how influence worked across regional and global matrixed organizations.

“And people … including your own legal team and senior management, do not follow you just because you have accomplished something in your career or have a senior title. You have to gain trust, persuade, support, motivate, and inspire all at once. That was not part of law firm life, and it became a new professional challenge that no book can teach or that you can simply will yourself to be able to do.”

The initial learning curve was steep. What changed the trajectory was not technical brilliance, but mindset. After some early failures, Anthony deliberately adopted a beginner’s humility. He immersed himself in the language of technology and business, leaning heavily on mentorship  particularly from his wife, Akiko Kikuchi, who was already at the time a seasoned general counsel in an international enterprise and several steps ahead of him in navigating corporate environments.

Gradually, the experience began to redefine how he viewed leadership.

“At first I wanted to quit and go back to the firm – I had clearly made a mistake. But I decided that I had to give it more time, and first let go of my ego and start at the beginning. Once I did that, things went really well. It took about one year to get my bearings.”

Rather than positioning himself as the most knowledgeable person in the room, Anthony focused on learning faster, listening more carefully, and building trust across functions. During his preparation to be General Counsel, Anthony’s predecesor put him in charge of almost every IBM business at the time from software and finance to strategic outsourcing, consulting and reasearch and development. Over time, he became a steady presence within IBM Japan, helping guide the organization through years of organizational, business, and cultural transformation. In the earlier years, he was also fortunate enough to have strong support from his predecessor and ultimately from a number of his collegues at the time, many of them who are themselves now accomplished leaders of departments at other companies.

What endured from that period was less a list of transactions than the highly performing and well-recognized team he helped shape. 

“My promise to my team was simple: you will be a better lawyer next year. That was my commitment.”  

He invested in business acumen and important stakeholder relationships, technical fluency, and external visibility, encouraging his team to step beyond pure legal execution. The department earned repeated internal and industry recognition (over 20 external team and individual awards during his 8-year tenure as GC), but internally he measured success differently - community, engagement, growth, and whether people felt they were advancing.

After more than a decade at IBM, Anthony reached another natural inflection point. Rather than remain in a legal department, he felt fortunate to have gained deep insight into new technologies, the business trends shaping Japan, and the needs of the in house community through his leadership roles at the Japan In House Counsel Network and the Japan Association of Chief Legal Officers. With that foundation, he chose to return to private practice, aiming to help legal departments, executives, and boards navigate an increasingly complex high tech landscape.

He chose to join southgate - a growing international firm based in Tokyo with a culture built around trust, collaboration, and entrepreneurship. One of the firm’s founding partners, Eric Marcks, had worked alongside Anthony in the corporate and venture practice in Silicon Valley, and their professional relationship had grown into a long standing friendship. A decade earlier, Eric and his co founders had built southgate to offer a new alternative in the market: meaningful cross-border experience in venture, M&A, and corporate work, paired with flexibility and a team that combines seasoned foreign and Japanese lawyers.  

At southgate, Anthony is focused on advanced technology and cross-border work, bringing together his experience in Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and in-house leadership, together with his colleagues, to support clients operating at the frontier of innovation.

“My motivation isn’t just to do ‘legal’ work. Of course excellent legal work is simply the starting point. After several years as a GC and member of an executive team, my perspective has expanded. I want to help Japanese society in areas where it needs to grow to be competitive - especially in areas like AI, semiconductors, space, and quantum computing. That’s where I think Japan needs the most support, either domestically or in cross-border matters. And that is where I think companies and legal departments need value-added strategic advice.”

Anthony Luna did not follow a straight line.

He repeatedly chose uncertainty over comfort: leaving Japan for law school, stepping into Silicon Valley’s intensity, returning to Tokyo without guarantees, stepping away from partnership to start over in-house. Each move forced reinvention and transformation. Each phase demanded new learning.

In hindsight, the path looks coherent. It was not. It grew out of hard work, real risk, learning from mistakes, supporting the legal community, and the backing of many excellent colleagues.

He continues to choose growth.