Robert W. Karr Jr.

With more than 30 years of experience working with Japanese companies, Bob is able to guide clients through complex domestic and international transactional and operational matters in a responsive and efficient manner while taking into account each client's professional, cultural, and language needs.

Bob represents companies in the manufacturing industry, including automotive, chemical, and food, as well as in the construction, banking, trading, and service industries. His work includes mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, real estate, construction, financing, sales and supply agreements, intellectual property development and licensing agreements, compliance and risk management counseling, human resources, and government relations.

Prior to rejoining Barnes & Thornburg, Bob was chief legal officer and senior vice president of administration at Blommer Chocolate Company, the largest industrial chocolate supplier in North America. He oversaw legal and risk, human resources and information technology, and was a member of the executive committee.

From 2014 to 2019, he led the company's international expansion, including establishing a manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China. He played a key role in the sale of the entire business to Fuji Oil Holdings, Inc., a publicly traded Japanese food company, in 2019. Following the acquisition, he helped lead the post-merger integration and many of the company's business transformation initiatives, including the closure of the original Chicago plant and manufacturing expansion projects in the U.S. and Canada.

In his role of chief legal officer, he also supported other Fuji Oil Group companies in North America, including Fuji Vegetable Oil, Inc. (FVO) and Oilseeds International, Inc. In 2023, he led the legal team to sell FVO’s New Orleans plant.

Bob has studied and worked extensively in Japan. He studied at Nanzan University in Nagoya from 1989 to 1991. Upon graduation, he returned to Japan to work at a major Japanese construction company in Tokyo for three years. During this time, he passed the highest-level Japanese language proficiency exam administered by the Ministry of Education.

While earning his J.D., he studied comparative law at Doshisha University in Kyoto. Early in his legal career, he was seconded into one of Japan's largest chemical companies in Tokyo to work on projects in over 10 countries on five continents, including acquisitions in England and Australia, several IP-focused strategic alliances in Europe, and manufacturing expansion in Africa with related work with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

Bob devotes much of his time to strengthening U.S.-Japan relations through business, arts, and culture. For more than 30 years, much of his civic leadership has focused on the preservation and development of the Garden of the Phoenix in Chicago. From 2013 to 2019, Bob partnered with Yoko Ono to create SKYLANDING, Ono's first and only permanent artwork in the Americas, which was installed in the Garden of the Phoenix. He also produced with Ono an album of her songs performed by Tatsu Aoki and the Miyumi Project.