Before Mr. Soda was assigned to be Special Advisor to METI and Director of JETRO New York in June 2016, he devoted his career at METI to international economic and financial affairs, energy policy, and revitalizing local economy.

Before coming to work in the United State, Mr. Soda served as chief policy secretary to the Special Advisor, Mr. Tatsuya Ito, to advise him in policy-making and to negotiate with several ministries and agencies as an agent for him. Mr. Ito is a former Minister of State for Financial Services and now works as an advisor to the Cabinet Office Minister in charge of overcoming population decline and vitalizing local economy, Mr. Shigeru Ishiba, who has a strong chance to become the next prime minister of Japan. In addition, Mr. Soda also served as chief director of the Big Data Team, responsible for developing Regional Economy and Society Analyzing System (RESAS), which was developed for local governments to make policy based on Big Data rather than experience, intuition, and preconception.

During his career at METI, Mr. Soda spent six years working for international economic and financial affairs. He oversaw the long-term strategy of international trade policy and transformed the Export Credit Insurance Division into Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI) in 2001. He was also in charge of deciding and allocating all energy policy budgets for two years, which makes him an expert on Japanese energy policy and its budget management. Furthermore, as director of the research office in the Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) Agency of METI, he researched and analyzed all issues related to policies of SMEs and wrote and published the 2014 White Paper on SMEs. In addition, in his three years as director of the Industrial Policy Division of the Ishikawa Prefectural Government, he instituted many successful policies.

Mr. Soda received an MBA in 2004 from the Goizueta Business School of Emory University (Atlanta, GA). His studies focused on decision-making and statistics. He also obtained a BA in philosophy from the University of Tokyo in 1997, shortly afterward he began his career at METI.