Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
Japan's Top Business Interviews is the premier business interview podcast for people who want to know more about business in japan. The guests cover a range of industries and organisation sizes, to present a thorough overview of issues with leading in Japan. If you are a leader, especialy someone leading in Japan, then this is the podcast for you.
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287 Karl Deppen — President & CEO, ARCHION Corporation
07/24/2026
287 Karl Deppen — President & CEO, ARCHION Corporation
“Everything starts with trust.” “Start with listening.” “Culture is nothing different from the collective behaviour of people.” “Dare to do things differently.” “Leadership is giving direction and inspiration to bring out the best possible for the organisation.” Brief Bio Karl Deppen is President and Chief Executive Officer of ARCHION Corporation, the new holding company bringing together Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation and Hino Motors. ARCHION began operations on 1 April 2026, combining two major Japanese commercial-vehicle brands to strengthen scale, competitiveness and investment in decarbonised transport, autonomous driving and digital mobility solutions. Deppen began his career more than 35 years ago with the former Daimler-Benz Group in procurement and supply-chain management. His international assignments have included Portland, Istanbul, Beijing, Stuttgart, Brazil and Japan. He has held roles spanning procurement, logistics, product management, leadership development, finance and general management, including Regional CFO for Daimler’s China operations, responsibility for finance across Mercedes-Benz assembly plants and R&D operations, leadership of the South American truck business, membership of the Daimler Truck Board of Management with responsibility for Asia, and President and CEO of Mitsubishi Fuso. His first Japan assignment began in 2002, when he became one of the earliest Daimler employees to join Mitsubishi Fuso after Daimler acquired a stake. That experience, followed by a return to Japan two decades later, shaped his conviction that adaptability in Japan begins with patient listening, understanding context and resisting the urge to impose pre-formed answers. Narrative Summary Karl Deppen’s leadership journey is unusually broad, even by the standards of a global automotive executive. Over more than three decades, he has moved across functions, continents and cultures, building experience in procurement, supply chains, product management, human resources, finance and operational leadership. That range now matters enormously. As President and CEO of ARCHION Corporation, he is leading the integration of Mitsubishi Fuso and Hino at a time when the commercial-vehicle industry is being reshaped by decarbonisation, autonomous driving, digitalisation and intensifying Asian competition. His first encounter with Japan came in 2002. He arrived without Japanese language ability or previous exposure to the country and entered a highly operational environment at Mitsubishi Fuso. The language barrier sharpened his ability to observe, draw, use numbers and read what people were trying to communicate. More importantly, it taught him patience. Trust was not created through positional authority or a perfectly delivered executive message. It emerged through repeated interaction, careful listening and a visible effort to understand. That lesson became central to his approach when he returned to Japan roughly twenty years later. Rather than assuming that earlier experience gave him a complete map, he deliberately treated the country and company as changed environments. Japan is a high-context culture, and effective leadership requires understanding the operating system beneath visible processes. What can initially look slow, complicated or overly cautious may reflect customer requirements, stakeholder commitments, quality expectations or prior experience. Deppen’s practical response is to ask why repeatedly, suspend judgement and speak directly with employees, customers, suppliers, banks and other stakeholders before changing the system. He also sees genuine strength in Japanese decision-making. Consensus building through nemawashi and formal approval mechanisms such as the ringi-sho can extend the front end of a decision, but once the team is aligned, execution can be exceptionally fast. The leadership opportunity is therefore not to discard consensus, but to shorten decision cycles while preserving commitment and execution discipline. This is decision intelligence in practice: understanding not only what decision should be made, but how the organisation must be engaged so that the decision becomes real. Trust, transparency, empowerment and accountability form the backbone of Deppen’s leadership philosophy. Employees need enough information to understand direction, freedom to act within clear expectations and accountability for outcomes. Difficult moments are decisive proof points. Leaders either build trust by listening to bad news and solving problems, or destroy it by shooting the messenger. In a zero-defect culture, fear can drive mistakes underground. Psychological safety is therefore not softness; it is an operating requirement that allows risks, missed targets and errors to surface early enough to be corrected. Innovation follows the same logic. Deppen supports structured improvement circles, skip-level dialogue, pilots and repeated lessons-learned reviews. The goal is not reckless experimentation, but controlled learning: try something on a limited scale, assess what worked, identify root causes when it did not, refine the process and then scale. For artificial intelligence, he argues that simply digitising an existing paper workflow rarely changes the needle. Companies need end-to-end redesign at the data layer, potentially supported by tools such as digital twins, automation and integrated decision systems. Ultimately, Deppen defines culture as collective behaviour. Purpose, vision and values matter only when translated into visible practices: what people do, what they refuse to tolerate, how they respond to mistakes and how they treat one another. His advice to leaders arriving in Japan is therefore disciplined and practical: start with listening, understand the context, assume there is a reason behind existing behaviour, learn enough language to widen access to the culture, and build the trust that makes change possible. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Japan combines a high-context communication environment with strong expectations around quality, detail and collective commitment. Decisions are rarely just agreements between two senior people. They are embedded in a wider network of stakeholders, informal nemawashi and formal mechanisms such as the ringi-sho. This can make the decision phase appear slow, particularly to executives from low-context cultures. The advantage is that once consensus is genuine, implementation can move with impressive speed because the people responsible for execution understand the rationale and are already committed. Effective leadership therefore respects the social architecture of the decision while working to reduce unnecessary delay. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often arrive with a strong track record and an assumption that proven headquarters practices should be transferred quickly. The visible process may look inefficient, bureaucratic or resistant to change. Deppen cautions that there is usually a good reason for why people do things the way they do. The reason may sit with a Japanese customer, a regulatory expectation, a quality requirement or an unspoken stakeholder agreement. Leaders struggle when they judge before they investigate. Direct engagement with employees, customers, suppliers, banks and partners helps reveal the operating context and prevents premature restructuring based on incomplete information. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan often displays high uncertainty avoidance, especially where mistakes can damage reputation, customer trust or career security. However, Deppen distinguishes caution from an unwillingness to improve. The greater danger is a zero-error aspiration that encourages people to conceal problems. Leaders must create psychological safety for employees to raise a flag, admit that a target may be missed and request help. Innovation becomes possible when experiments are bounded through pilots, resources and review points. A failed pilot should produce a structured lesson, not a search for someone to blame. What leadership style actually works? Deppen’s approach begins with active listening and develops through communication, transparency, empowerment and accountability. He argues that people quickly sense whether a leader is genuinely trying to understand them. Trust grows through meaningful dialogue and is tested when conditions become difficult. Leaders must clarify expectations, provide freedom to operate and hold people accountable without turning accountability into punishment. He summarises his model as TEAM: trust, empowerment, accountability and mutual ambition. Shared ambition matters because a large, team-dependent organisation cannot succeed if the CEO’s targets are not believed or owned by the wider workforce. How can technology help? Technology can accelerate transformation, but only when leaders redesign work rather than automate yesterday’s process. Applying artificial intelligence to an existing paper flow may produce marginal efficiency without changing the business outcome. A stronger approach examines the process end to end, starts with the data layer and asks how the workflow would be designed if digital capability were native from the beginning. AI, automation, decision intelligence and digital twins can improve speed, visibility and scenario testing, but the human organisation still needs the trust and learning discipline required to adopt them. Does language proficiency matter? Japanese proficiency helps because language opens a window into culture, relationships and assumptions that may not be stated directly. Deppen also notes that Japan contains substantial English capability, although employees may hesitate to speak when they fear exposure or embarrassment. Leaders can lower that barrier through patience, written follow-up, visual explanation and an environment in which imperfect language is accepted. Language should improve communication, not become an excuse to avoid it. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The central lesson is to start with listening. A leader entering Japan should temporarily set aside fixed ideas about what is right or wrong and first understand the existing operating system. Culture is the collective behaviour of people, so change depends on the practices that leaders repeatedly model and reinforce. Purpose and values provide direction, but trust turns them into action. Leadership succeeds when people understand the direction, feel empowered to contribute, accept accountability and share the ambition to achieve something together. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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286 Sean Travers - Representative Director of MESHD
07/17/2026
286 Sean Travers - Representative Director of MESHD
“Listen more than you talk.” “Try to be as inclusive as possible.” “Transparency at all times, especially in bad times.” “The founder is the mood maker.” “Leadership is all about providing clarity, providing direction, but also letting the individual get to that endpoint themselves.” Sean Travers is the Founder and Representative Director of MESHD, a Tokyo-based executive search firm specialising in deep technology. The company works extensively with Japanese corporations operating in robotics, industrial automation, mobility, artificial intelligence, machine learning and other advanced engineering fields. Born in the United Kingdom and raised in Perth, Western Australia, Travers began his career selling large-scale capital equipment to the mining and resources sector. The work involved multimillion-dollar transactions, extensive travel to remote mining sites and direct negotiations with tough, highly practical decision-makers. This environment shaped his early commercial instincts, resilience and results-oriented leadership style. After marrying his Japanese wife and starting a family, Travers moved to Tokyo more than 20 years ago. With limited Japanese-language ability and few obvious career options for a foreign professional at the time, he entered recruitment. He subsequently built a career in specialist executive search, including establishing the Japan operation of a global energy recruitment company. The 2015 oil and gas downturn became a defining moment. Despite the Japan business performing well, Travers was instructed by overseas headquarters to decide within 24 hours which employees should be terminated. The experience convinced him that even a successful local leader remained vulnerable to decisions made by distant executives. He eventually launched his own company with several long-standing colleagues. Over the following decade, Travers expanded beyond conventional executive search. His businesses have helped establish and incubate specialist recruitment ventures, including firms focused on software, chemicals and hospitality. His leadership journey in Japan has required him to move from a highly directive, perfectionist management style towards a more inclusive approach built on listening, transparency, autonomy, trust and cultural adaptability. Sean Travers’ leadership journey in Japan began far from Tokyo’s corporate offices. Raised in Western Australia, he learned to sell multimillion-dollar capital equipment in the mining and resources industry. Success depended on abandoning formal appearances, visiting remote worksites and earning credibility with blunt, experienced equipment operators. It was a demanding commercial education that rewarded toughness, directness and persistence. Those qualities later helped Travers succeed in executive recruitment, but they also created leadership challenges. After moving to Japan more than 20 years ago, he entered the recruitment industry and eventually took responsibility for teams and entire business operations. His initial approach was highly prescriptive. As a perfectionist, he expected employees to follow the methods that had worked for him. Team members with similar personalities often performed well, but many others struggled. Feedback from his manager and trusted friends forced Travers to reconsider his assumptions. Leadership could not be based on expecting everyone to respond to the same instructions, pressure or communication style. He gradually became more attentive to individual differences, emotional reactions and the need to adapt his expectations. This remained compatible with accountability, but it required him to separate high performance standards from unnecessarily militant behaviour. Leading Japanese employees created another layer of complexity. In meetings, employees might nod, indicate understanding and appear to agree, only for Travers to discover later that they did not understand, support or trust the direction. He learned that setting a clear objective was not enough. Leaders must ask questions that confirm understanding, create alternative channels for feedback and consult trusted internal colleagues who can explain how a message was actually received. This awareness also influenced the way he recruited people into his own company. Joining a new boutique recruitment firm involves considerable perceived risk, especially in Japan, where candidates may consult family members and carefully assess a company’s stability. Travers found that trust could not be created through a single persuasive interview. Some candidates required regular discussions over 18 to 24 months before they were ready to join. Rather than continually selling the opportunity, he shared honest updates about clients, target industries, business progress and organisational challenges. His commitment to the team was tested during COVID-19. When revenues fell, Travers and his leadership group chose salary deferments rather than headcount reductions. Travers personally went without a salary for approximately two and a half years. The decision reflected both loyalty and commercial logic. Experienced recruiters require considerable time and investment before becoming productive, and rebuilding the team after the recovery would have been expensive and disruptive. Transparency became central to maintaining engagement. However, Travers does not interpret transparency as disclosing every concern to every employee. Leaders must judge which information should be shared across the organisation and which should remain within the leadership team. The purpose is to provide enough truth for employees to understand decisions without creating unnecessary fear or instability. As the company grew, Travers also had to create opportunities for quieter employees to contribute. Weekly all-hands meetings were useful, but the same confident people tended to speak. He therefore began arranging individual lunches and conversations with team members who were less likely to contribute publicly. Anonymous surveys and live digital voting also provided safer channels for candid feedback. The company’s culture evolved with its needs. Its early atmosphere was highly sales-driven and dominated by aggressive dealmaking. Travers recognised that a business composed only of competitive “hunters” would struggle to attract the broader mix of people needed for sustainable growth. Team lunches, off-sites, greater financial visibility and discussions about employees’ backgrounds and ambitions helped create a more balanced environment. Travers believes the founder’s behaviour has a disproportionate impact in a smaller company. The founder becomes the organisation’s “mood maker”. A leader who arrives visibly discouraged or negative can lower the energy of the entire workplace. Leadership therefore includes the discipline to demonstrate constructive energy even during difficult periods. His advice to new foreign leaders in Japan is grounded in this experience: listen more than they talk, include people without placing them under uncomfortable pressure and remain transparent, particularly when circumstances deteriorate. Japanese-language ability helps, but it does not guarantee success. Character, attitude, discipline and the willingness to understand people matter more. Ultimately, Travers defines leadership as establishing the destination and providing the emotional support, clarity and guardrails that allow others to reach it. Leaders should give employees autonomy, trust them to perform and provide direct feedback when they deviate. The leader sets the endpoint, but the individual must have room to determine the route. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan requires close attention to what is not stated directly. Travers discovered that apparent agreement in a meeting may not represent genuine understanding, commitment or trust. Japanese employees may nod, acknowledge an instruction and avoid openly challenging a senior leader, while privately remaining uncertain or unconvinced. This makes confirmation essential. A leader cannot simply deliver a clear message and assume it has landed. Questions must be used to test understanding without creating embarrassment. Trusted internal supporters can also provide valuable insight into how particular employees interpreted the discussion. Indirect feedback is especially important. Travers has used respected colleagues to speak privately with employees and uncover concerns that might never be raised in a formal meeting. This resembles a practical form of nemawashi: gathering reactions, identifying resistance and building alignment through quieter conversations before expecting visible consensus. Trust also takes time. Employees and candidates may evaluate not only the leader but also the organisation’s long-term stability. Consistent behaviour, repeated contact, honest business updates and a willingness to acknowledge mistakes are more persuasive than a polished recruitment pitch or inspirational speech. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they transfer a leadership formula that succeeded elsewhere without adapting it to the people or context in Japan. Travers initially relied on the direct, forceful style he had developed in Western Australia. He assumed that employees would succeed by following the same methods that had produced his own results. This approach worked with a minority of employees who shared his temperament, but it was ineffective for many others. The experience demonstrated that leadership success is not automatically transferable. The leader must adjust communication, coaching and expectations according to the individual. Foreign executives may also misinterpret politeness as commitment. A meeting can appear successful because no one objects, yet employees may leave without believing in the decision. Executives who dominate discussions, speak too quickly or fail to invite quieter voices may unknowingly suppress the information they need. Another common mistake is treating Japanese-language proficiency as the primary solution. Language is useful, but a fluent executive who lacks humility, emotional intelligence or cultural awareness can still fail. Attitude and behaviour determine whether language becomes a bridge or merely another tool for issuing instructions. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Travers’ experience suggests that caution in Japan is often rational rather than inherently risk-averse. A candidate considering a boutique recruitment company must evaluate whether the organisation will survive the next economic downturn. Recruitment is cyclical and frequently acts as a canary in the coal mine: hiring freezes arrive early when an industry begins to weaken. Employees may also seek advice from parents, grandparents, former colleagues or trusted senpai before changing jobs. From a Western perspective, this can look excessively conservative. From the candidate’s perspective, however, employment decisions affect family stability, professional reputation and long-term security. Travers responded by extending the courtship process. Some potential hires remained in conversation with the company for 18 to 24 months. During that period, he did not merely sell the role. He provided evidence about the company’s clients, industries, performance, challenges and direction. The COVID-19 response also demonstrated how leadership can reduce uncertainty. Rather than cutting employees immediately, the company introduced salary deferments and preserved the team. This decision created risk for the founder, who received no salary for approximately two and a half years, but it provided greater security for employees and positioned the organisation to recover without rebuilding its workforce. What leadership style actually works? Travers advocates an adaptive style that combines direction, accountability, empathy and autonomy. His early top-down approach was too rigid. Over time, he learned that empathy does not require abandoning standards and accountability does not require brutality. The leader must first clarify the endpoint. Employees need to understand where the organisation is today, where it intends to be in the future and which outcomes define success. The leader then provides guardrails and emotional support while allowing individuals to determine how they will reach the destination. Inclusion is also essential. Leaders should actively invite participation from people who do not naturally dominate meetings. Travers uses individual lunches, direct questions, anonymous surveys and live voting to gather ideas from a wider cross-section of the company. He also believes that leaders should explain the reasoning behind decisions, especially when acknowledging mistakes. Employees may disagree with the conclusion, but understanding the decision-making process increases respect and trust. Admitting an error does not necessarily diminish authority. When combined with ownership and a credible explanation, it can strengthen leadership credibility. How can technology help? Technology can create safer and more democratic channels for employee input. In traditional meetings, seniority, confidence and communication style can determine whose ideas are heard. The same employees may repeatedly raise their hands, while quieter people remain invisible. MESHD has used anonymous post-event surveys and real-time digital voting to overcome this limitation. Employees can express support or opposition without being identified publicly. This allows the organisation to measure sentiment more accurately and reduces the pressure to follow the most senior or outspoken person. Technology does not replace personal leadership. Travers still values one-to-one lunches, informal conversations and feedback gathered through trusted colleagues. Digital tools are most effective when they complement human relationships and provide additional routes for honest communication. The broader lesson is that decision intelligence improves when leaders diversify their information sources. Formal meetings, private conversations, anonymous data and operational results each reveal different aspects of organisational reality. Leaders who rely on only one channel risk making decisions from incomplete information. Does language proficiency matter? Japanese-language ability helps foreign leaders communicate, form relationships and understand more of what is happening around them. Travers speaks Japanese and considers it an advantage. However, he does not believe that language proficiency guarantees leadership success. Character, attitude and discipline matter more. Employees observe how a leader responds under pressure, whether commitments are honoured, whether mistakes are acknowledged and whether the leader listens sincerely. These behaviours build or destroy trust regardless of vocabulary level. A leader who speaks imperfect Japanese but demonstrates respect, curiosity and consistency may be more effective than a fluent speaker who assumes language ability provides complete cultural understanding. Fluency can help a leader access information, but it cannot substitute for humility or good judgement. Foreign executives should therefore study Japanese while also developing deeper listening skills. They need to notice hesitation, indirect disagreement and the absence of expected follow-through. Communication success should be measured by shared understanding and action, not by the leader’s ability to complete a conversation in Japanese. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? Travers’ central leadership lesson is that the leader provides clarity and direction without controlling every step. The organisation may be at point A today and aiming for point Z in two years. The leader must define Z, explain why it matters and create the conditions in which employees can move towards it. Those conditions include emotional support, trust, autonomy and honest feedback. Employees should know the guardrails and performance measures, but they should also have room to use their judgement. When they make mistakes, the leader must respond directly and constructively rather than taking back all control. Leadership also requires personal accountability. Travers learned to admit when decisions had produced negative consequences and to explain the reasoning that led to them. Employees generally responded with greater understanding than he expected. Finally, leadership is visible. In a smaller organisation, the founder’s energy affects everyone. The leader becomes the mood maker, particularly during uncertainty. Listening, inclusion, transparency and constructive energy are therefore not occasional techniques. They are daily responsibilities that shape whether people trust the direction and choose to follow. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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285 Jasper Westerink - CEO, Philips Japan
07/10/2026
285 Jasper Westerink - CEO, Philips Japan
“I’m here to be part of the team.” “The longer you are somewhere, the more you realise you know nothing.” “If your intention is positive, people will support you.” “We want to be an international company in Japan.” “It really starts by asking what is my impact? What can I do?” Jasper Westerink is the CEO of Philips Japan and a Dutch executive whose career has been shaped by international leadership, adaptability, and a deep commitment to learning from local cultures. After completing university in the Netherlands, where he studied marketing, management, and business, he joined Philips with the initial idea of building a career in the Netherlands. Instead, an early opportunity to work in Thailand opened the door to a global career that would take him and his family across Thailand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Greece, Indonesia, South Africa again, and ultimately Japan. Over many years with Philips, Westerink built a broad leadership perspective across emerging markets, developed markets, complex organisations, and highly diverse cultural environments. His Japan assignment brought together his global Philips experience, his interest in Japanese culture, and the company’s need to connect Japan more closely with global Philips capabilities. In Japan, he has focused on trust-building, engagement, accountability, recognition, and helping Japanese teams share their world-class ideas more confidently with the global organisation. Jasper Westerink’s leadership story in Japan begins with a global career that gave him both confidence and humility. As CEO of Philips Japan, he arrived not as someone assuming he already understood the market, but as a guest who needed to listen, observe, and learn. Having worked across Thailand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Greece, Indonesia, and other markets, he brought a rare breadth of experience to Japan. Yet his most important leadership insight is that the more time one spends in a country, the more one realises how much remains beneath the surface. Japan struck Westerink as extraordinarily organised, harmonious, and safe. He noticed this first in daily life, from the punctuality of trains to the quiet consideration shown by people in public spaces. These visible behaviours pointed to deeper cultural systems. In business, he observed a strong preference for harmony, pre-alignment, and consensus. Unlike more confrontational management cultures, where executives may debate passionately in the room and make decisions on the spot, Japan often relies on nemawashi, informal pre-discussion, careful preparation, and the quiet work that happens before the formal meeting. By the time a decision reaches the table, much of the ringi-sho-style alignment has already occurred. For a foreign CEO, this can feel slow or even passive at first. Westerink admits that he likes visible passion and energetic debate, but he came to understand that Japanese passion often sits below the surface. It may not appear in a formal meeting, yet it emerges in trusted settings, peer groups, customer discussions, informal conversations, and carefully structured opportunities to contribute. One of his strongest methods for drawing out ideas is friendly peer competition. Philips Japan encourages doctors, physicians, and internal teams to share ideas around quality, AI, better patient outcomes, reduced workload, and operational improvement. Rather than making innovation a top-down CEO initiative, Westerink has found that peer recognition, team-based contribution, and “Made in Japan” pride help unlock ideas. Japanese employees may be modest, but many of their solutions are globally competitive. His job is to create safe structures that make it easier for them to speak up. Trust-building has been central. Westerink made it clear from the beginning that he was not above the team, but part of it. He visited teams at different levels, spent time with people outside the office, joined informal social and sports activities, asked questions, listened carefully, and showed genuine curiosity about how work was done. He also recognised his own physical presence and high-energy style. As a very tall foreign CEO with a serious face when concentrating, he learned to smile more, keep appropriate distance, use humour, and turn his height into an icebreaker rather than a barrier. His leadership philosophy also centres on accountability. Using the Japanese concept of jiseki, or starting with oneself, he encourages people to ask, “What can I do? What did I do wrong? What can I improve?” In a culture where fear of failure and loss of face can be strong, he tries to create an environment where mistakes are not hidden but owned, discussed, and learned from. Ultimately, Westerink’s Japan leadership lesson is not about importing a foreign management model. It is about combining Philips’ global culture with Japanese strengths and his own leadership character. He wants Philips Japan to remain deeply Japanese while also becoming more confident internationally. That balance — respect for local culture, openness to global standards, and the courage to ask better questions — defines his approach. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is unique because much of the real work happens before the meeting. Westerink observes that Japanese business culture places a high value on harmony, preparation, respect, and careful pre-alignment. In many Western or international contexts, management meetings can be lively, direct, and even confrontational. People interrupt, challenge, debate, show visible passion, and make decisions in the room. In Japan, the formal meeting is often the final stage of a longer process. Nemawashi, consensus-building, and quiet coordination help protect relationships and reduce open conflict. This does not mean people lack passion. It means passion is expressed differently, often in smaller groups, trusted settings, or after the formal meeting has ended. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they misread the absence of visible debate as a lack of engagement. Westerink initially missed the open passion he had seen in other markets. He had to learn that Japanese colleagues may be deeply committed but less likely to challenge publicly until trust has been built. Foreign executives can also underestimate the importance of timing, silence, hierarchy, and indirect communication. They may become impatient when progress appears slow, not realising that a great deal is happening behind the scenes. Japan requires leaders to develop patience, curiosity, and the ability to read context rather than relying only on explicit statements. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan is often described as risk-averse, but Westerink’s experience suggests a more nuanced picture. The issue is not that Japanese people lack ideas or ambition. Rather, there is strong uncertainty avoidance around failure, loss of face, and public mistakes. People want to deliver perfect work, and that can slow action when speed and learning are required. Westerink addresses this by making failure discussable. He calls out mistakes, but not to punish people. Instead, he asks what can be learned, what will be done differently, and whether others can benefit from the lesson. This reframes risk from personal embarrassment into collective improvement. What leadership style actually works? The leadership style that works in Japan is humble, consistent, curious, and relationship-based. Westerink emphasises that he is a guest in Japan and part of the team. He asks many questions, visits people where the work happens, joins informal activities, and spends time with employees outside formal meetings. He also leads by example. If budgets are tight, he stays in the same type of hotel as others. If the company expects people to be accountable, he models accountability himself. He also adapts recognition to the culture. Instead of always singling out one heroic individual, he recognises the importance of team contribution, because public individual praise can sometimes create discomfort in Japan. How can technology help? Technology helps when it is connected to real clinical, operational, and customer value. Philips Japan works in health technology, including advanced medical equipment such as MRI systems. Westerink describes initiatives where doctors and physicians submit research on how to improve procedures, increase accuracy, reduce workload, and create better outcomes. Internally, Philips Japan also invites teams to explore AI, quality improvement, billing processes, service efficiency, and better patient outcomes. This reflects a form of decision intelligence: using data, expertise, frontline insight, and structured evaluation to improve decisions. In health care, technologies such as AI, digital twins, and advanced imaging can only create value when leaders understand the clinical reality, the customer’s challenge, and the human workflow around the technology. Does language proficiency matter? Language matters, but Westerink’s experience shows that leadership in Japan is not only about speaking Japanese. He uses translators when needed, allows questions in Japanese, and encourages teams to prepare and present in English when appropriate for an international company. The key is not linguistic perfection, but communication design. Leaders must create channels where people can speak safely, ask questions, and contribute. Westerink sometimes asks for critical questions and waits until the team provides them. At first, this was uncomfortable. Over time, people learned that constructive challenge was expected and welcome. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson?The ultimate lesson is that positive intent, humility, and connection matter most. Westerink advises new leaders in Japan to find trusted people who will tell them when things are going well and when their behaviour may not be landing as intended. They should be transparent about why they are in Japan, what they hope to contribute, and what they hope to learn. They should connect with people through work, food, informal time, customer visits, and genuine curiosity. His advice is simple but profound: the longer leaders are in a place, the more they realise they know nothing. That mindset keeps them learning. Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results.He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Christian Baudat — Country General Manager Japan, The Ascott Limited
07/03/2026
Christian Baudat — Country General Manager Japan, The Ascott Limited
“Leadership is probably the ability to influence in a positive way.” “There is no the right way or the wrong way; there is the best way.” “What I do not accept is people not trying.” “Status quo is a no-go.” “A good leader would be able to grow not just a company, but also grow the people.” Christian Baudat is Country General Manager Japan for The Ascott Limited, one of the world’s leading serviced residence and hospitality groups. A graduate of the École hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland, he began his international hotel career with Hilton in Tokyo in 1985. His career has included senior leadership and general management roles in Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and across the wider Middle East and North Africa region. Baudat has led hotel openings, major rebranding projects, operational turnarounds and large-scale teams, including roles at Hilton Tokyo, Hilton Tokyo Bay, Hilton Nagoya, Hilton Tokyo, Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk and Hilton Tokyo Odaiba. Before joining Oakwood and subsequently leading Ascott’s Japan operations, he served as a regional vice president for Rotana, overseeing more than twenty properties across several countries. His long career in Japan has given him a practical understanding of how to combine global hospitality standards with Japanese expectations around respect, harmony, communication and customer service. Christian Baudat’s leadership journey began with a desire to leave his small Swiss hometown and see the world. After graduating from the École hôtelière de Lausanne, he entered the Hilton management trainee programme and arrived in Tokyo in 1985. His first assignment in Shinjuku placed him immediately inside one of the world’s most demanding hospitality markets. Over the following decades, he built an unusually broad career across hotel openings, restaurant operations, rebranding assignments, general management roles and regional leadership responsibilities in Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and the Middle East. His leadership philosophy has been shaped by the realities of working across cultures and by the particular communication dynamics of Japan. One of his earliest lessons was that agreement cannot be assumed simply because someone says “yes”. In Japanese business, “hai” can mean that a message has been heard, rather than that it has been accepted or that action will follow. Baudat therefore places great importance on validation. For him, leadership requires checking whether people truly understand the intent behind a message, whether they believe in it and whether the message has travelled accurately through the organisation. This is especially important in hierarchical organisations, where messages can become diluted as they pass through middle management. Baudat avoids relying solely on formal reporting lines. He spends time close to the operational frontline, speaks directly with associates, observes service delivery and confirms whether leadership messages remain alive at lower levels of the organisation. This approach is not intended to undermine managers. Rather, it is a way of ensuring that leaders understand what is happening in reality, not merely what appears in reports or formal meetings. Baudat also emphasises that directness must be balanced with humility and respect. Early in his career, he encountered experienced colleagues who regarded a young foreign manager as a possible threat. He learned that authority alone would not create commitment. Respecting experience, acknowledging expertise and demonstrating a willingness to learn were essential. Even when disagreement occurred, he found it important to return to the conversation, restore working relationships and avoid allowing conflict to become permanent. His experience also highlights the changing nature of work in Japan. In the past, employees in hospitality often had fewer career alternatives and might have accepted traditional expectations more readily. Today, employees are more likely to assess whether a role fits their aspirations, lifestyle and values. Talent shortages have also shifted the balance of power. Leaders can no longer assume that staff are easily replaceable. Instead, they need to understand why people are struggling, whether a role suits their strengths and how coaching, support or reassignment may unlock their potential. This creates a new leadership imperative. Rather than dismissing employees who do not immediately fit a conventional model, leaders must be curious. They need to diagnose whether a problem comes from poor instructions, insufficient training, unclear expectations, different personal values or an unsuitable role. Baudat sees this as a central responsibility of contemporary leadership: giving people a genuine chance to improve while maintaining clear standards. Innovation is another key theme in his approach. Baudat encourages people to look beyond their own industry, observe trends in fashion, retail, technology and food, and bring fresh ideas into hospitality. He believes that leaders must create an environment in which experimentation is protected. In Japan, uncertainty avoidance can make people reluctant to suggest ideas that might fail. Effective leaders must provide air cover, take responsibility for sensible experiments and ensure that people receive credit when their ideas succeed. Leadership, in Baudat’s view, is not about being the source of every answer. It is about creating the conditions in which people can contribute, learn and grow. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan requires a high level of sensitivity to indirect communication, hierarchy and harmony. Baudat’s central lesson is that apparent agreement should be checked rather than assumed. A response of “yes” may indicate that someone has heard a message, not that they support it or intend to act on it. Leaders must validate understanding through follow-up conversations, observation and direct contact with the people responsible for execution. The Japanese emphasis on consensus can make nemawashi especially important. Before a major decision is formally announced, informal groundwork often helps leaders understand concerns, identify resistance and build alignment. Formal processes such as ringi-sho may represent the visible decision process, but the real work of consensus-building often happens earlier through respectful discussion and relationship management. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives can struggle when they arrive with strong assumptions, immediate solutions and little patience for local context. Baudat believes that leaders entering Japan should not assume the organisation is broken or that overseas experience automatically provides the correct answer. His preferred approach is a structured ninety-day process: the first month is spent absorbing information, the second month processing what has been learned and the third month communicating direction and beginning execution. The mistake is to act before understanding the people, the history and the operating culture. Leaders need to recognise what existing employees have already achieved and respect the systems that have kept the organisation functioning. Change is sometimes necessary, but change imposed without listening can create resistance, confusion and disengagement. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan has a strong preference for reliability, quality and avoiding visible errors. This can make people reluctant to experiment, particularly when mistakes may affect reputation or create embarrassment. However, Baudat does not believe that this means Japanese organisations cannot innovate. The issue is not an absence of ideas. It is the need for leaders to create psychological safety around testing, learning and adjusting. He makes a clear distinction between failure and not trying. Experiments may not always succeed, but standing still is not acceptable. Leaders must demonstrate that responsible attempts will be supported. When an innovation does not work, the response should be to examine the learning, refine the idea or move on, rather than punish the person who took the initiative. What leadership style actually works? Baudat advocates a leadership style built on visibility, respect, personal credibility and practical support. He does not believe leaders should remain in an office and manage only through reports. He prefers to walk the operation, speak with people, recognise good work and identify issues quickly. When serious matters arise, he handles them privately and respectfully rather than publicly embarrassing someone. His style also includes being mindful of personal presence. A senior leader’s authority, physical presence, tone of voice and communication style can all be intimidating. Baudat has learned to reduce unnecessary barriers by sitting with people rather than speaking down to them, moving away from a formal desk setting and creating a calmer environment for important conversations. How can technology help? Technology can strengthen decision intelligence by helping leaders see patterns, identify operational issues and make better-informed choices. Data, AI tools and digital twins may enable hospitality organisations to test service flows, anticipate demand, model staffing needs and evaluate guest preferences. However, Baudat’s experience suggests that technology cannot replace human judgement, frontline observation or emotional intelligence. Hospitality remains a people business. Technology may improve speed, consistency and insight, but leaders still need to understand staff, guests and the human realities behind operational data. The strongest use of technology is therefore to support better conversations and better decisions, not to remove leaders from the people they lead. Does language proficiency matter? Japanese language ability is valuable, particularly for leaders who intend to remain in Japan for the long term. It signals commitment, reduces communication distance and helps leaders pick up nuance. Baudat learned Japanese out of necessity when he was responsible for large teams with limited English ability. He acknowledges that language skills need not be perfect to be useful. The important point is whether the message can be understood. At the same time, language proficiency is not the first requirement for success. A leader without strong Japanese can still listen carefully, observe body language, work with trusted interpreters and remain alert to tone, silence and context. The most important ability is not speaking every word perfectly. It is understanding what is really being communicated. What is the ultimate leadership lesson? For Baudat, leadership is the ability to influence people and the environment in a positive way. It requires trust, growth and humanity. A good leader grows the company, but also grows the people within it. High intelligence alone is not enough. Leaders with low emotional intelligence may achieve results temporarily, but they risk becoming isolated and losing the confidence of the people around them. The ultimate leadership lesson is that influence is earned. It is earned through listening, keeping promises, supporting people when they face obstacles, recognising their contribution and having the courage to make difficult decisions when necessary. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Robert Roche — President & CEO, Oak Lawn Marketing
06/26/2026
Robert Roche — President & CEO, Oak Lawn Marketing
“I think what I know now is to be a little more slow.” “My style was to steal the best from Japan and the U.S.” “What I would do is pick your fights.” “Someone who can make a decision without all the information.” “A leader can function gracefully with an abundance of ambiguity.” Robert Roche is the President and CEO of Oak Lawn Marketing, the company behind the Shop Japan brand. His career in Japan began as an exchange student at Nanzan University in Nagoya, followed by law school in Denver and further study in Nanzan’s law department. He returned to Japan without a conventional corporate career path and built his business through persistence, experimentation and a willingness to learn from failure. Early ventures in importing were unsuccessful, but they led to the creation of H&R Consultants and eventually Oak Lawn Marketing. Roche helped pioneer the infomercial and direct-response television shopping model in Japan, building a major business from Nagoya before it became widely known in Tokyo’s foreign business community. He later established Acorn International in China, adapting a related television-shopping model to a very different market. His career reflects deep adaptability across Japan, China, media, retail, entrepreneurship and large-company partnerships, including working with NTT Docomo as a major shareholder in the business. Robert Roche’s business story is a powerful lesson in entrepreneurial leadership, cultural adaptability and decision-making under uncertainty. His path did not begin with a polished strategy, venture capital or a prestigious corporate appointment. It began with an exchange programme at Nanzan University in Nagoya, an interest in Japan, a willingness to learn Japanese and an instinct that he could build something of value despite having no obvious roadmap. His first ventures were failures. Imported clamshells for cultured pearls did not work. Neon clocks did not work. The experience gave Roche an early and memorable lesson: buying products is easy; selling them is difficult. Rather than treating these setbacks as reasons to retreat, he used them as practical education. That resilience later became central to the development of Oak Lawn Marketing and Shop Japan. The company’s breakthrough came through television shopping. Roche initially sold parallel-imported products such as Tiffany goods and Lands’ End bags, before being introduced to Japanese television retailing. He had to learn every part of the operation: presenting products on television, answering calls, packing goods, applying shipping labels and even cleaning the office. The experience gave him an unusually grounded understanding of direct-response retail. It also demonstrated that leadership credibility is built when leaders understand the real work of the organisation. As the business grew, Roche and his colleagues recognised an opportunity in imported infomercials. They secured products that were already successful overseas, localised them for Japan and bought television time to reach Japanese consumers directly. Oak Lawn Marketing became a Japan market-entry specialist, acquiring exclusive rights to successful products and adapting media, language, labels, customer service and fulfilment for the Japanese market. Growth created new leadership challenges. Roche describes a company that scaled quickly, often without elegant systems or conventional management infrastructure. Recruiting was difficult in Nagoya, and hires from elite corporations often struggled with the radically different pace, ambiguity and hands-on demands of an entrepreneurial company. He learned that individuals needed the right cultural bridge before moving from highly structured institutions into a fast-moving, experimental business. Roche’s leadership evolved over time. Earlier in his career, speed, impatience and relentless momentum helped propel the company forward. Later, he realised that patience, long-term planning, automation and more thoughtful communication were equally important. His experience in China reinforced this lesson. Japan required encouragement for people to take initiative; China often required leaders to channel intense entrepreneurial energy. He came to see the two markets as yin and yang: both dynamic, but requiring very different leadership responses. His ultimate leadership definition is especially relevant for executives in Japan: leadership is the ability to make decisions without complete information and to function gracefully amid ambiguity. It is a lesson that combines entrepreneurship, cultural intelligence, decision intelligence and the humility to understand that there are multiple valid paths to the same goal. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan requires an appreciation of process, relationships and organisational harmony. Formal authority alone is rarely enough. Effective leaders need to understand how nemawashi, informal consensus-building, supports later decisions; how ringi-sho processes formalise approval; and how trust is often built through consistent behaviour rather than forceful declarations. Roche’s experience shows that Japanese workplaces can contain deeply valuable traditions of respect, service and collective responsibility. The aim is not to discard these practices as outdated, but to distinguish useful traditions from unproductive ones. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they mistake unfamiliarity for inefficiency. A leader arriving from headquarters may see different communication patterns, slower consensus-building or less visible individual initiative and conclude that the organisation lacks capability. Roche argues that this reaction misses the point. Japan has a high-quality workforce, strong attitudes towards responsibility and significant organisational knowledge. The challenge is to separate material differences from immaterial differences and to avoid imposing headquarters habits where they do not improve results. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan is often described as risk-averse, but Roche’s experience suggests a more nuanced view. The issue is not necessarily fear of risk; it is uncertainty avoidance and the preference to reduce exposure before acting. In a direct-response television business, decisions had to be made rapidly, media had to be purchased and products had to be tested before perfect information was available. This required a more entrepreneurial rhythm. Japanese organisations can act decisively when leaders provide enough context, credibility and confidence that the downside is understood and managed. What leadership style actually works? Roche’s preferred style blends the best aspects of Japan and the United States. It values work ethic, respect, disciplined execution and attentiveness to detail, while also encouraging speed, experimentation and direct accountability. It avoids a simplistic choice between command-and-control leadership and consensus-only leadership. The most effective approach is situational: clear about outcomes, flexible about pathways and patient enough to allow people to contribute. It also requires the discipline not to react emotionally when employees lack historical knowledge or make uninformed comments. How can technology help? Technology can help organisations become more deliberate rather than merely faster. Roche sees a need for greater understanding of data science, sales technology, algorithms, automation and decision intelligence. Digital twins, predictive modelling and customer data can help organisations test offers, improve fulfilment, forecast demand and reduce wasted effort. However, technology is not a replacement for judgement. It should support better decisions, not create false certainty. Leaders still need to assess ambiguity, understand customers and make choices before all information is available. Does language proficiency matter? Language proficiency matters because it signals effort, respect and a willingness to understand the local environment. Roche’s Japanese enabled him to build relationships, negotiate with regional media figures and understand the realities of Japanese business beyond the expatriate bubble. Full fluency is not the only requirement, but even a practical level of Japanese can deepen trust and reduce distance. It also helps global executives recognise the important difference between what is said formally and what is communicated through context, timing and relationships. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? Roche’s core lesson is to pick the right fights. Leaders should identify non-negotiable business outcomes while remaining open about how those outcomes are achieved. They should avoid dismissing local practices simply because they differ from headquarters norms. Strong leadership combines clarity, patience, humility, cultural intelligence and the courage to act amid incomplete information. The best leaders understand that several paths may lead to the same mountaintop. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Campbell Hanley — Managing Director, Weber Shandwick Japan
06/19/2026
Campbell Hanley — Managing Director, Weber Shandwick Japan
“Leadership, I think it’s really walking the talk.” “I think it comes from within, being genuinely very interested in people.” “You can’t win every battle, and you’re crazy if you try to.” “Let’s look at the spirit of what they’re trying to achieve.” “To be successful in Japan, I think you have to be patient.” Campbell Hanley is the Managing Director of Weber Shandwick Japan, one of Japan’s longest-established international public relations and communications agencies. Originally from Torquay near Melbourne, Australia, he came to Japan in 1992 after deciding to live in a non-English-speaking country and develop international experience outside Australia. His career in Japan has moved across public relations, journalism, content marketing, advertising, digital communications and agency leadership. Hanley began in a small PR company, moved into marketing and digital work, and then became a staff writer for the Mainichi Daily News. He also worked on special projects for Fortune and Time magazine, developing an editorial perspective that later became central to his communications career. Before joining Weber Shandwick Japan, he worked in a major American advertising company, initially as managing editor of a content marketing business and later in international advertising sales and digital marketing. At Weber Shandwick Japan, he was originally hired to build a content marketing unit but soon took on broader business, digital and leadership responsibilities. His career reflects the adaptability required to succeed in Japan: learning the language, understanding local business expectations, building credibility over time and translating global ideas into practical Japanese-market solutions. Campbell Hanley’s leadership journey in Japan began long before he became Managing Director of Weber Shandwick Japan. Arriving in 1992 from Australia, he did not come with a grand corporate plan or a fixed career pathway. He simply wanted to live in a country where English was not the dominant language and experience a society very different from the relatively homogeneous environment in which he had grown up near Melbourne. Japan became that destination. What began as a one-year overseas experience developed into a decades-long career across public relations, journalism, advertising, content marketing, digital media and leadership. Hanley’s career progression is a useful example for foreign professionals who build their lives in Japan not through a single breakthrough, but through accumulated credibility, language ability, adaptability and a willingness to learn from every role. His early work in a small PR company gave him an introduction to communications. A subsequent role in marketing exposed him to digital work at a time when digital communications meant something very different from today’s social media, AI platforms and always-on content ecosystems. Later, he joined the Mainichi Daily News as a staff writer during a period when traditional media organisations were adjusting to digital distribution. That journalism experience became a defining advantage. It taught him to think like an editor rather than simply like a promoter. He learned to distinguish between a genuine story and what he describes as propaganda. That distinction became central to his later work in content marketing and public relations. Clients may want to tell the market everything about themselves, but audiences, journalists, customers and stakeholders only respond when the story is relevant, credible and useful. Hanley later joined a major American advertising company, where he became managing editor of a content marketing operation. It was his first meaningful leadership experience, managing a team of editors and content specialists. He discovered that leading experienced writers required more than formal authority. Editors see their writing as craftsmanship. They have opinions, pride and professional standards. Trying to win every argument would damage motivation and reduce the team’s willingness to contribute ideas. The answer was negotiation. Leaders need clear standards, client requirements and editorial principles, but they also need flexibility. Hanley learned that credibility comes from explaining why something should change, listening to experienced contributors and recognising that good leadership does not require winning every battle. At Weber Shandwick Japan, he initially joined to lead a newly formed content marketing division. The intended leadership structure was meant to include a business leader, a digital leader and an editorial leader. Instead, the business leader moved into another area of the organisation and the digital leader never arrived. Hanley found himself managing the editorial, business and digital dimensions of the operation at the same time. That intense period gave him a much wider view of leadership. He had to understand profit and loss responsibility, client needs, digital platforms, team capability and the internal politics of integrating new services into a traditional PR organisation. He later moved into the core Weber Shandwick Japan business, working to embed digital communications throughout the agency rather than treating it as a separate specialist division. His approach was practical. Rather than forcing every team to adopt new digital services at once, he found allies. He worked with colleagues who were curious, receptive and ready to experiment. Together, they met clients, developed communications ideas and used examples from Weber Shandwick’s global network to show what was possible. This approach recognised a key truth about Japan. A global campaign may work in the United States, Europe or another Asia-Pacific market, but that does not guarantee success in Japan. The core idea may be relevant, but the delivery needs localisation. Japanese stakeholders need to understand the purpose, feel ownership and have confidence that the programme reflects their market reality. In that sense, digital transformation is not just about technology. It is also about nemawashi, trust-building, internal consensus and creating the conditions for people to support change. As Managing Director, Hanley places strong emphasis on engagement, consistency and psychological safety. He believes employees can sense whether leadership interest is genuine or manipulative. Employees are unlikely to become engaged simply because their employer launches an engagement initiative, an employee survey or a new corporate value statement. Engagement is built over time through repeated behaviour. Hanley’s practice of meeting one employee each week over breakfast or lunch is a small but important example. These conversations have no rigid agenda. They are designed to understand how people are doing, what they are seeing and what may be happening beneath the surface of formal reporting lines. In Japan, where employees may hesitate to bring bad news to senior leaders, those informal conversations can help surface problems earlier. He also recognises that approachability is relative. A leader may believe that they are open and accessible, yet employees may still struggle to raise difficult issues face-to-face. One colleague who appeared calm during a discussion later sent a detailed and emotional email. That experience reinforced the importance of offering multiple channels for communication. Hanley’s broader leadership lesson is simple but demanding: leadership in Japan requires patience. Executives who arrive with aggressive turnaround plans, fixed KPIs and a desire to make immediate changes can easily misread the organisation. Sustainable success comes from learning the landscape, identifying trusted partners, listening to quieter high performers and allowing relationships to develop over time. For Hanley, leadership is not about issuing instructions from above. It is walking the talk, creating clarity, modelling the values expected from others and building an environment where people can contribute honestly, creatively and confidently. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is unique because progress often depends on trust, relationships, consensus and careful internal alignment rather than visible executive force. Foreign leaders can underestimate the role of nemawashi, the informal process of building support before a decision becomes official. They may focus on the formal meeting, the ringi-sho approval or the announcement, without recognising that much of the real decision-making has already happened through conversations behind the scenes. Japanese employees may also be more cautious about challenging senior leaders directly, especially in formal settings. That does not mean they lack ideas or commitment. It means leaders need to create multiple ways for people to contribute. Informal meetings, regular one-to-ones, anonymous suggestion systems and consistent follow-up can all help reduce the distance between senior management and the broader organisation. The leadership challenge is not to become passive or avoid difficult decisions. It is to understand that change is more sustainable when people feel included in the process. In Japan, consensus is not simply about avoiding conflict. It is often a method for reducing implementation risk. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle in Japan when they assume that a successful strategy from another market can be transferred without adaptation. A campaign, operating model or leadership style that works in the United States, Europe or Singapore may not receive the same level of buy-in in Japan. Hanley’s experience in communications shows that global programmes often fail not because the original idea is poor, but because Japanese stakeholders do not feel ownership over the delivery. Global headquarters may see a campaign as proven and scalable. The Japan team may see it as culturally disconnected, commercially unrealistic or difficult to execute with local customers, media and employees. Executives also struggle when they become too focused on avoiding offence. Cultural sensitivity is important, but excessive caution can weaken decision intelligence. Leaders need to trust their judgement, while also seeking strong local counsel to identify blind spots. The best approach is not blind confidence or excessive deference. It is a balance between clear leadership instincts, local insight and evidence-based adaptation. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan is often described as risk-averse, but the more accurate issue is uncertainty avoidance. Japanese organisations may be reluctant to move quickly when the consequences, stakeholder reactions or implementation details are unclear. That is different from being unwilling to innovate. Hanley’s career in digital communications shows that Japanese organisations can embrace change when the purpose is clear, the risks are understood and trusted people are involved in shaping the solution. Innovation often needs more explanation, more examples and more internal preparation than it might in a startup environment or a fast-moving Western market. This is why leaders should not interpret slow initial movement as resistance. Sometimes the organisation is asking for more clarity. What is the business case? Who will support the initiative? How will it affect customers? What are the risks? What happens if it fails? Who is accountable? The most effective leaders reduce uncertainty without eliminating ambition. They use pilots, local case studies, customer feedback, internal champions and phased implementation. They do not merely tell people to be more innovative. They create conditions in which innovation feels credible and safe. What leadership style actually works? A leadership style that works in Japan combines clarity, consistency, respect and follow-through. Hanley places particular importance on authenticity. Employees observe whether a leader behaves consistently over time, whether they treat people fairly and whether they give feedback in a way that supports improvement rather than simply criticising performance. This is especially important in a culture where employees may be cautious about exposing problems or challenging the boss. A leader who only appears interested when there is a crisis will not create trust. A leader who takes time to understand people, recognises contribution, provides regular feedback and deals with issues fairly is more likely to earn confidence. Hanley’s approach also reflects servant leadership. He does not wait for employees to bring every issue to him. He asks questions, checks in regularly and works to identify problems before deadlines make them unmanageable. This is not micro-management. It is active leadership. The key is to combine high expectations with human connection. Employees need to understand what success looks like, but they also need to believe that the leader wants them to succeed. How can technology help? Technology can help leadership when it improves access to information, encourages ideas and reduces the barriers that stop people from speaking openly. Hanley’s use of an anonymous digital suggestion platform is a good example. The system allowed employees to submit ideas in Japanese or English without fear that their identity would be traced. The value of the tool was not only anonymity. It was also the message behind it. Employees saw that their suggestions were being read, considered and treated constructively. Technology can create channels, but leadership determines whether those channels are trusted. In communications, technology also expands the range of ways organisations can engage customers and stakeholders. Paid, owned, earned and shared media require different approaches. Companies need to think beyond advertising and consider how websites, newsletters, events, journalists, influencers, employees and customers all contribute to reputation. Tools such as AI, analytics, digital twins and data platforms can improve decision-making, but they do not replace local judgement. Technology provides information. Leaders still need to interpret that information through the realities of customers, employees, Japanese business culture and organisational capability. Does language proficiency matter? Language proficiency matters because it signals commitment, builds trust and allows leaders to hear what is not being said. Hanley’s Japanese ability helped him establish credibility early in his career. It showed colleagues that he had invested time and effort in understanding Japan rather than treating the country as a temporary overseas posting. However, language alone does not determine leadership effectiveness. A foreign executive may not become fluent in Japanese, yet still lead successfully if they listen carefully, use capable interpreters and bilingual advisers, and create an environment where people can communicate in the way that works best for them. Hanley also highlights the importance of recognising quieter employees. In international companies, employees with stronger English skills or greater confidence in global communication can appear more visible than colleagues whose performance may actually be stronger. Leaders need to avoid rewarding only those who can speak most fluently in the leader’s native language. The best leaders look beyond self-promotion. They listen for substance, observe results and create fair evaluation systems. What is the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate leadership lesson is patience. Hanley believes leaders need time to understand the organisation, build relationships, identify trusted partners and learn how decisions are really made. Rapid turnaround stories can be appealing, but in Japan, a leader who acts too quickly may damage trust before they have understood the full context. Patience does not mean delaying decisions indefinitely. It means learning enough before acting. It means recognising that a relationship with a client, employee, partner or internal stakeholder may take years to build but can create value for decades. Leadership in Japan is therefore a long-term practice. It is about walking the talk, showing consistency, respecting people, creating psychological safety and helping teams adapt global ideas to local realities. The strongest leaders do not merely manage tasks and KPIs. They create a culture in which people feel able to contribute, raise concerns, share ideas and take responsibility for the future of the business. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Ernie Higa — President, CEO, and Chairman of Higa Industries
06/12/2026
Ernie Higa — President, CEO, and Chairman of Higa Industries
“Your biggest asset as an entrepreneur is actually yourself—your own personal strengths” “You cannot get a cultural translator” “You have to develop a different mentality for any retail business” “It boils down to developing a strong corporate culture” “One size does not fit all” Ernie Higa is a Japanese American entrepreneur, business leader, and long-term Japan executive who built a career by bridging Japan and the United States. Born in Hawaii, educated in Geneva and Japan, and later trained at the Wharton School and Columbia Business School, he returned to Japan in the late 1970s to join his family’s businesses before becoming an entrepreneur at the age of twenty-six. Starting at a time when entrepreneurship in Japan was far from mainstream, he built businesses across lumber, medical devices, and food service, including the development of Domino’s Pizza Japan and later Wendy’s Japan. His career arc reflects adaptability, cultural intelligence, and the ability to localise global business models for the Japanese market. Across multiple industries, Higa learned to lead older Japanese employees, attract talent outside traditional corporate pathways, build strong corporate culture, and balance global thinking with local execution in Japan. Ernie Higa’s leadership story is a practical case study in what it takes to build, adapt, and lead businesses in Japan when the usual paths are unavailable. As a Japanese American who looked Japanese but initially lacked Japanese fluency and deep cultural familiarity, he entered Japan with both an advantage and a disadvantage. He did not fit neatly into the Japanese corporate hierarchy, yet that ambiguity also allowed him to break certain unwritten rules. In 1979, at the age of twenty-six, entrepreneurship was not a recognised or respected career track in Japan. Banks were sceptical, age mattered, company pedigree mattered, and credibility was usually attached to large organisations. Higa had none of those traditional signals, so he had to build credibility through performance, adaptability, and cultural understanding. His first major opportunity came in lumber. During the U.S.-Japan trade tensions of the 1970s and 1980s, he saw a way to add value by having Japanese lumber specifications cut in North American sawmills rather than simply importing logs for Japanese mills. This required him to bridge American production capabilities with Japanese precision requirements. The work demanded more than translation. It required understanding Japanese expectations around quality, reliability, tolerance, process, and trust. Higa’s insight was that language could be translated, but culture could not be outsourced so easily. This became one of his central leadership lessons: leaders in Japan must understand the hidden rules, not only the spoken words. As his businesses grew, Higa had to attract talent despite not being a famous Japanese corporation. He found opportunity in retired executives and staff from major trading houses and large companies. These people brought experience, networks, and discipline, while his own strengths were U.S.-Japan bridging, entrepreneurial thinking, and the ability to access decision-makers in ways a young Japanese executive might not have been able to do. Because he was not fully inside the Japanese system, he could sometimes bypass the conventional constraints of nemawashi, age hierarchy, and formal ringi-sho decision pathways, while still respecting the rules that could not be broken. His leadership style evolved as his businesses diversified. In lumber and medical devices, leadership was closer to a conventional pyramid, where major decisions by the leader or top management shaped outcomes. But Domino’s Pizza Japan taught him a different model: the upside-down pyramid. In retail, the store manager, not the president, creates the customer experience and drives revenue. The head office exists to support the frontline. This shift required humility, delegation, and trust. It also demanded a strong corporate culture that could scale across thousands of employees, including part-time staff. Higa built that culture around ideas such as “can do” and “unique and exciting.” These were not slogans for decoration; they were tools for shaping behaviour. In a market where uncertainty avoidance can discourage experimentation, Higa pushed for positivity, growth, and practical innovation. His use of training centres, staff events, incentive schemes, and even the acquisition of Domino’s Hawaii reflected a leader trying to make the company attractive, aspirational, and different from traditional Japanese employers. His approach to innovation was equally pragmatic. Japan’s consumers demand quality, service, and variety, especially in food retail. Higa recognised that product development required customer input, staff ideas, leadership intuition, and the willingness to accept failure. But he also knew that entrepreneurs cannot afford massive failures. His early adoption of e-commerce for Domino’s Japan was a form of decision intelligence: using technology to reduce lead times, test campaigns faster, and avoid being trapped by three-month flyer cycles that could not be changed once printed. In today’s language, that mindset resembles the use of digital twins, rapid prototyping, and feedback loops to simulate, test, and adjust before risk becomes too expensive. His ultimate message for global leaders in Japan is clear: think global, act local, but do not go too native. Japan requires respect, localisation, patience, and cultural sensitivity, but foreign leaders must also preserve the strengths they bring. Leadership in Japan is not about copying Japanese companies or imposing foreign templates. It is about knowing which rules to respect, which rules to challenge, and how to build trust through consistency, positivity, and determination. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is unique because credibility is often shaped by context before performance is even tested. Age, company name, educational background, capitalisation, scale, and social legitimacy all influence how a leader is received. Higa entered the market as a young Japanese American entrepreneur at a time when the idea of entrepreneurship did not resonate strongly with banks or mainstream business society. He had to lead in an environment where he lacked conventional status, yet he also discovered that being outside the system gave him some freedom. Because he was not a typical Japanese manager, he could sometimes approach senior decision-makers directly and avoid being pigeonholed by the normal hierarchy. The uniqueness of Japan lies in this balance: formal structures matter, but outsiders who understand the culture may sometimes move differently within it. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they assume that success in a large home market can be transferred directly to Japan. Higa describes two types of expatriates: those who come to show Japanese staff how things are done elsewhere, and those who recognise that Japan is different and try to work with those differences. The second group is more likely to succeed. Japan requires localisation not only in products and services but also in management. Decision-making, trust-building, customer expectations, employee motivation, and communication all work differently. A “one size fits all” approach fails because Japan’s market has its own logic. Global executives must respect Japanese practices such as nemawashi, consensus-building, and ringi-sho processes, while also avoiding the mistake of becoming so localised that they lose the global strengths they were sent to provide. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan is often described as risk-averse, but Higa’s experience suggests the deeper issue is uncertainty avoidance. People may hesitate when they cannot see the process, the precedent, or the likely outcome. In traditional Japanese organisations, fear of failure and reluctance to take on extra responsibility can slow initiative. Higa addressed this through a “can do” culture, reinforced by his own behaviour. He did not treat positivity as a motivational slogan alone; he used it as an operating principle. When the company hit obstacles, the question became how to respond constructively rather than retreat. In this sense, leadership is not about pretending risks do not exist. It is about reducing uncertainty, creating confidence, and showing people how to move forward despite imperfect information. What leadership style actually works? Higa argues that there is no single correct leadership style. The right style depends on the leader’s personality, the business model, and the people being led. In his lumber and medical device businesses, important decisions were made by him and his senior team, creating a more traditional pyramid structure. In Domino’s Pizza, however, the business required an upside-down pyramid because store managers created the value. The role of headquarters was to support the people closest to the customer. Higa’s own preference was to lead by example, earn respect, and involve people in management decisions rather than rely on command-and-control authority. His broader point is that authenticity matters. A leader must understand their strengths and weaknesses and build a leadership approach that fits reality, not theory. How can technology help? Technology helps when it reduces the cost of failure and shortens the distance between idea and feedback. Higa’s experience with Domino’s flyers showed the problem clearly. The company spent heavily on printed campaigns, distributed them to stores and households, and sometimes discovered after two or three weeks that the campaign was ineffective. By then, the materials were already printed and the campaign cycle was locked in. His move into internet ordering and e-commerce was driven by a desire to make campaigns more flexible. If something did not work online, it could be changed quickly. This was an early form of digital decision intelligence. Today, leaders might use analytics, digital twins, scenario modelling, and customer feedback loops for the same reason: to test, learn, and adapt before small mistakes become large failures. Does language proficiency matter? Japanese language ability helps, but Higa stresses that cultural understanding matters even more. A leader can hire a language translator, but not a cultural translator. The deeper challenge is knowing what is being implied, what is not being said, which rules matter, which rules can be bent, and how trust is built. Language opens doors, but culture explains what is happening inside the room. For foreign leaders in Japan, even partial Japanese ability can signal respect and seriousness. However, the larger requirement is sensitivity to difference. Leaders must avoid judging Japanese practices simply because they differ from American, European, or other global norms. Respecting difference is the first step toward effective leadership. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is determination combined with positivity. Higa has met many successful leaders with different personalities: some charismatic, some quiet, some brilliant, some surrounded by brilliant people. He does not believe leadership can be reduced to one formula. The common factor he sees is the ability to stay focused, remain determined, and not give up. Business always brings events beyond a leader’s control: exchange rates, geopolitical shocks, climate change, pandemics, and market disruption. Leaders cannot control everything, but they can control how they respond. Reacting negatively does not help. The leadership challenge is to face negative situations with a constructive mindset and ask what can still be done. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan. My Point Of View Ernie is someone I often see around town and he is a very hard worker. I would say he is probably the canniest entrepreneur I have met in Japan. A very impressive businessman and a great role model for the rest of us. He has excellent people and communication skills.
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Meghan Barstow - President of Edelman Japan
06/05/2026
Meghan Barstow - President of Edelman Japan
“My career, I like to say, is about saving the world one word at a time.” “I love team building. I love creating something from nothing or growing it further.” “Creating connection and engagement with people” is one of the hardest parts of leading remotely. “You need to show the vision, where you're going, and why that matters.” “Leadership is really about unlocking the potential and power of those who report to you.” Meghan Barstow is President of Edelman Japan, bringing a career defined by language, communications, adaptability and cross-cultural leadership. Her Japan story began thirty years earlier when she studied Japanese at Kansai Gaidai in Osaka after intensive language training in the United States. With an academic background in English literature and Japanese, she describes herself as “a woman who loves words,” a phrase that neatly captures her professional journey. After university, Barstow returned to Japan through the JET Program, spending three years in rural Kagoshima as an ALT and CIR. That immersive experience deepened both her Japanese language capability and her understanding of regional Japan. She later worked for Hyogo Prefecture’s business and cultural centre in Seattle, taught Japanese at a public high school, and returned to Tokyo to create business English textbooks before entering PR and communications through Adcom Group’s Tri Media. Her career with Edelman began in Japan on the healthcare team when the office was still relatively small. She later moved to the United States, took time to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, and rejoined Edelman in Washington, D.C., where she developed her leadership capabilities across client leadership, sector leadership and employee experience. Her long-held ambition was to return to Japan and lead an office. She eventually came back as President of Edelman Japan, taking on the challenge of leading more than seventy people during the COVID era, much of it remotely. Barstow’s leadership context is shaped by global communications, Japanese cultural fluency, remote transformation, employee engagement, trust-building and organisational change. Her adaptability in Japan comes not from a single posting, but from repeated immersion, reinvention and a deep belief that words, trust and human connection sit at the centre of effective leadership. Meghan Barstow’s leadership story is a study in language, mobility, resilience and change. As President of Edelman Japan, she leads an organisation at the intersection of communications, marketing, trust, earned attention and cultural transformation. Her path to Japan did not begin with the usual clichés of pop culture or food. Instead, it began with a love of travel, a willingness to take on difficult languages and a desire to build a career through communication. Her first deep experience of Japan came as a student at Kansai Gaidai in Osaka. Later, through the JET Program, she spent three years in rural Kagoshima, an experience that gave her more than language ability. It gave her the kind of cultural immersion that helps a foreign leader understand Japan beyond Tokyo boardrooms. She went on to work in cultural exchange, education, publishing and eventually PR, where she discovered that communications felt like her “calling.” Barstow’s return to Japan as Edelman’s country leader came after significant leadership experience in the United States, particularly in Washington, D.C. Yet the move back was not simply a geographic transfer. She returned to a Japan office undergoing transformation, in an industry where the boundaries between PR, marketing, advertising, digital and corporate communications had become increasingly blurred. Edelman’s value proposition, as she explains it, lies in being independent, family-owned, grounded in earned attention and differentiated by decades of research into trust through the Edelman Trust Barometer. Her biggest challenge was not only strategy. It was connection. She took on the role during COVID and had not met most of her employees face to face. Leading a team of more than seventy people remotely required deliberate communication, listening and repetition. She used all-staff business updates, weekly written roundups, one-on-one meetings, roundtables, strategy workshops and “strategy spotlight” sessions to make the direction tangible. In Japan, where uncertainty avoidance, consensus and nemawashi matter, remote transformation made alignment even harder. Barstow’s approach to change management is grounded in clarity, role modelling and personal experience. She believes leaders must show the vision, explain why it matters, gain manager buy-in and give employees direct experiences of the new strategy. This is especially important in Japan, where change can feel risky because it moves people from competence into uncertainty. The challenge is not simply to announce direction, but to help people understand it emotionally and practically. Her leadership style is also shaped by trust. She recognises that trust in Japan is hard-won, takes time and becomes even more difficult in a remote environment. She sees consistency, integrity, care and communication as central to building it. Employee engagement surveys, business performance metrics and informal feedback help her understand whether the organisation is moving, but she also recognises that Japanese survey responses can be culturally restrained. For her, improvement over time matters more than absolute scores. Her view of leadership is ultimately humble and enabling. She sees the leader’s role not as personal heroics, but as unlocking the potential of others. Sometimes the leader stands in front, showing the way. Sometimes beside people, supporting them step by step. Sometimes behind them, cheering them forward. For foreign executives in Japan, her lesson is clear: the fundamentals of leadership may be universal, but the path to alignment, buy-in and trust requires patience, listening, nemawashi and respect for how decisions are actually made. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan requires a careful balance between hierarchy and bottom-up consensus. Meghan Barstow observes that people may defer to the leader and expect direction, while also expecting decisions to emerge through wider involvement and alignment. This creates a leadership paradox for foreign executives. They must provide vision and direction without bypassing the consensus-building process that helps people feel ownership. Japan’s business culture places high value on listening, patience, nemawashi and relationship-based trust. Leaders need to spend more time preparing the ground before pushing major initiatives forward. This is not simply politeness. It is a practical requirement for gaining commitment and avoiding resistance. In Barstow’s experience, one-on-one listening, roundtables and repeated communication are essential to helping people understand both the logic and emotional meaning of change. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle in Japan because they underestimate how much time alignment takes. In faster-moving Western environments, a leader may announce a strategy and expect the organisation to move. In Japan, the message may need to be repeated, discussed, localised and validated through multiple channels before people fully commit. Barstow’s own challenge was intensified by remote work. She was leading more than seventy people, yet had not met most of them face to face. That made trust-building, employee engagement and emotional connection much harder. Global executives may also misread employee engagement data, because Japanese respondents often score more conservatively than employees in other markets. Barstow therefore focuses less on comparing Japan with global averages and more on whether the organisation is improving over time. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan is often described as risk-averse, but Barstow’s experience suggests the issue is more nuanced. The deeper challenge is uncertainty avoidance. People may hesitate when change pushes them out of a known area of competence into a new environment where they may make mistakes or lose face. This is particularly important in Japan’s quality-conscious, defect-sensitive culture. For leaders, the answer is not to criticise caution. It is to reduce uncertainty through explanation, involvement, repetition and evidence of progress. Barstow emphasises the importance of showing the vision, explaining why it matters and giving people personal experiences of the change. When employees see that a new way of working succeeds with clients or improves outcomes, the change becomes real rather than abstract. What leadership style actually works? Barstow’s leadership style combines strategic clarity, listening, humility and persistence. She began her tenure by preserving existing communication rhythms, then spent her first months listening through one-on-ones and roundtables. After understanding what employees wanted and needed, she built a communication and engagement plan around strategy, business updates and practical learning. She also recognises the importance of the “frozen middle” — the layer of managers who can either accelerate or block transformation. In Japan, leaders need managers to champion the change, role model new behaviours and translate strategy into daily practice. A leadership style that works is therefore not only top-down. It is distributed, repeated and reinforced through many small touchpoints. How can technology help? Technology can support leadership, but it cannot replace human trust. Barstow used remote platforms, written updates, engagement dashboards, survey tools and virtual roundtables to maintain communication during COVID. These tools created visibility when informal office interactions disappeared. Written communication also helped employees absorb messages at their own pace, especially in a multilingual environment. Technology can also improve decision intelligence by giving leaders more data about employee engagement, business performance and organisational change. In the future, tools such as digital twins of organisational workflows could help leaders model bottlenecks, workload pressures or collaboration patterns. However, Barstow’s experience shows that technology only helps when paired with listening, empathy and human interpretation. Does language proficiency matter? Language proficiency matters, but cultural fluency matters even more. Barstow’s Japanese study, rural JET Program experience and repeated periods living and working in Japan gave her a deeper foundation than a short-term expatriate assignment would have provided. Her language background helped her connect with Japan, but her leadership effectiveness also comes from understanding context, patience and communication style. She also recognises that English can be challenging in remote settings, even for capable bilingual professionals. Written updates, clear repetition and structured communication help ensure people can process complex information. For foreign leaders, language ability is valuable, but the bigger issue is whether employees feel understood, respected and included. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate leadership lesson from Barstow’s experience is that leadership is about unlocking the potential and power of others. She does not see leadership as being centred on the leader’s ego. Rather, it is about helping people grow, strengthening organisational capability and creating conditions where others can succeed. Her definition of leadership is flexible. Sometimes leaders must lead from the front, showing the way. Sometimes they stand side by side, supporting people closely. Sometimes they lead from behind, encouraging and cheering others forward. In Japan, the most effective leaders combine vision with patience, courage with humility and strategy with the deep human work of trust-building. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Klaus Meder — Previous President of Bosch in Japan
05/29/2026
Klaus Meder — Previous President of Bosch in Japan
"You have to make the effort to talk to the people who are decisive" "You shouldn’t be the ambassador or the mail boy" "Communication is very important" "People are not stupid. They really see immediately if people do not walk the talk" "Be respectful and don’t say no too fast" Klaus Meder is Previous President of Bosch in Japan, leading a business that has evolved from a network of joint ventures, license relationships and specialised manufacturing operations into a major Bosch Group presence of about seven thousand associates. His Japan career began in the late 1990s, when he worked for roughly five years in a Bosch-Zexel joint venture in Tomioka, Gunma Prefecture, where he led a largely Japanese team in airbag electronic control systems while bridging technology, culture, language and headquarters relationships. He returned to Japan in mid-2017, bringing decades of Bosch experience, deep product expertise and a practical understanding of how German and Japanese business cultures can work together. His leadership story is shaped by adaptability: learning when hierarchy matters, when direct communication is needed, when respect must come first, and how a global company can build engagement, trust and innovation in Japan. Klaus Meder’s reflections on leadership in Japan are valuable because they avoid both romanticism and stereotype. He first came to Japan in the late 1990s to work in a joint venture between Bosch and Zexel Corporation in Tomioka, Gunma Prefecture. The organisation was small, local, highly Japanese and deeply hierarchical. The seating order itself reflected the organisation chart, with senior managers placed according to rank and younger engineers progressively further away. For a young German vice president working through a translator, the first leadership challenge was not simply language. It was credibility. Meder earned that credibility through technical expertise, connections to headquarters and a willingness to communicate with the people who actually held authority, even when communication was difficult. He is clear that a common mistake for foreign executives is to speak only with the younger employees who have stronger English. That may feel efficient, but it bypasses the hierarchy and weakens trust. His advice is to respect the decision structure and make the effort to speak with decisive people. This is where Japan-specific concepts such as nemawashi, ringi-sho, consensus and uchi-soto become practical leadership realities rather than cultural vocabulary. A leader must understand where influence sits, how decisions are prepared and why inclusion matters before a formal decision appears. Meder also challenges simplistic views of Japan as indirect or passive. His early experience included a very direct Japanese president who shouted at people, and Japanese colleagues who told him plainly that he was too young. The lesson is that intercultural training is useful, but reality is more complex than the stereotype. Japan combines respect, formality, hierarchy and strong customer orientation with moments of surprising directness. When he returned to Japan in 2017, Bosch Japan had grown dramatically. The leadership challenge had shifted from surviving in a traditional joint venture to building one Bosch spirit across legacy companies, product relationships and long-standing industrial ties. Engagement, in his view, is not captured perfectly by global survey scores. A question such as whether an associate would recommend the company to a relative carries different weight in Japan because personal responsibility, employer responsibility and uncertainty avoidance are culturally stronger. For Meder, engagement is built through communication and practical proof. During the coronavirus crisis, Bosch Japan held weekly crisis meetings, shared outcomes and used his personal blog, translated into Japanese, to explain global and local decisions. The company also ran a vaccination programme for thousands of associates and family members. Trust was not just discussed; it was operationalised. That same trust appears in working-time recording, where associates record their own hours honestly even though overtime pay is affected. His leadership definition is anchored in approachability, conviction, walk the talk behaviour and judgement. Leaders must know when to let teams run and when to make clear decisions. In Japan, they must be respectful, slow to reject ideas, serious about language and body language, and willing to encourage people to move faster in their careers. For Meder, leadership in Japan is not about forcing a Western model onto a Japanese organisation. It is about combining respect with clarity, trust with accountability, and global ambition with cultural intelligence. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is unique because formal structure, informal influence and respect all operate at the same time. Klaus Meder describes an earlier workplace where the seating order mirrored the organisation chart and where communication moved through clear hierarchical channels. A foreign leader who ignores that structure can easily damage trust. Effective leadership therefore requires understanding nemawashi, consensus-building, ringi-sho style preparation and the boundary between uchi and soto. Japan is not simply hierarchical for the sake of hierarchy; it is a system in which responsibility, respect and decision ownership must be carefully managed. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they mistake English fluency for authority. Meder warns against speaking only to younger engineers or managers who communicate easily in English while bypassing senior decision-makers. That may accelerate conversation in the short term, but it weakens alignment. Executives also struggle when they rely too heavily on stereotypes. Meder was told that Japanese leaders were indirect and quiet, yet his first Japanese president was extremely direct. The real skill is to observe, adapt and communicate with the people who matter, not with the people who are merely easiest to reach. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Meder’s comments suggest that Japan is not simply risk-averse; it is responsibility-conscious. Engagement survey questions reveal this difference. When Japanese associates are asked whether they would recommend the company to a relative or friend, they may hesitate not because they are disengaged, but because they feel personally responsible for both the person and the employer. This is closer to uncertainty avoidance than lack of commitment. Leaders need decision intelligence: the ability to interpret survey data, promotion reluctance and customer requests through cultural context rather than through a single global benchmark. What leadership style actually works? The style that works is respectful, approachable and clear. Meder emphasises communication, trust and walk the talk behaviour. People quickly notice when leaders say one thing and do another. In stable periods, leaders can let the team operate independently. In crises, people want leaders to bring them together and make clear decisions. This flexible style matters in Japan because excessive command can suppress initiative, while excessive delegation can create uncertainty. The leader’s task is to know when to let loose and when to lead. How can technology help? Technology helps when it creates participation, visibility and learning. Bosch uses continuous improvement, hackathons, internal start-up platforms and online training to draw ideas from associates and make them visible to management. In an advanced manufacturing environment, the same principle extends to decision intelligence, digital twins and data-informed process improvement: technology should not replace trust, but it can make problems, options and learning cycles clearer. For engagement, the platform itself can be as valuable as the eventual winning idea because associates see that their ideas are heard. Does language proficiency matter? Yes, language proficiency matters, but effort matters even before mastery. Meder says Japanese is difficult, yet even a few words can be appreciated because the effort signals respect. He also stresses the importance of gestures and body language. In Japanese grammar, the decisive word can come at the end, and sometimes it is not spoken at all. Leaders therefore need to read tone, silence and non-verbal cues. Language is not only vocabulary; it is a way of understanding respect, hesitation, agreement and disagreement. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is to combine respect with movement. Meder advises foreign leaders to be respectful and not say no too quickly, especially to customers or associates. At the same time, he believes Japanese careers often progress too slowly. He encourages associates to think in three-to-five-year career steps rather than staying in the same role for ten or fifteen years. Leadership in Japan therefore means honouring the culture while helping people grow beyond the limits the culture can sometimes impose. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Jesper Koll — Global Ambassador for the Monex Group
05/22/2026
Jesper Koll — Global Ambassador for the Monex Group
“Behind every number, there is a leader.” “If you are a player as well as a coach… that’s the single best way to actually have the credibility.” “I take the blame. You know, you guys take the credit.” “To unlock creativity… protect the odd ideas.” “A true leader is somebody who can inspire individual team members to be better than themselves.” Jesper Koll has been in Japan since 1985, when he arrived as a PhD researcher studying global finance. What began as an academic year at Kyoto University became a long-term professional and personal commitment to Japan. Over the decades, he built a distinguished career as one of Japan’s most recognised economic and investment commentators, including senior roles as Chief Economist and Chief Strategist at Merrill Lynch Japan and Head of Research at JPMorgan. He has also worked in hedge funds, built his own company, and moved between large institutions and smaller entrepreneurial environments. His career arc reflects a deep adaptability to Japan’s business culture, an ability to interpret Japan for global markets, and a leadership style grounded in credibility, humility, local insight, and trust. Jesper Koll’s leadership philosophy is rooted in one central belief: in Japan, numbers alone never tell the full story. Behind every figure sits a leader, a team, a community, and a set of relationships that must be understood before meaningful judgement can be made. His experience leading highly skilled research teams in Japan taught him that the Anglo-American model of purely empirical, numbers-first analysis was insufficient in the Japanese context. In Japan, insight came not only from data, but from the human relationships that allowed analysts to understand the people behind the companies they covered. Koll argues that foreign executives in Japan must not assume that global best practice can simply be transferred into Tokyo. What works in New York, London, or Hong Kong will not necessarily work in Japan. The most successful leaders understand the importance of local adaptation. They defend the Japanese way of doing things to headquarters rather than merely transmitting headquarters’ orders to Japan. This is where concepts such as nemawashi, consensus-building, ringi-sho, and uncertainty avoidance become important. They are not obstacles to leadership; they are part of the operating system leaders must learn to respect and use intelligently. His own credibility as a leader came from being both a player and a coach. As head of research, he still wrote reports, met clients, appeared on television, spoke at conferences, answered difficult questions, and risked being wrong in public. This gave him standing among a team of highly specialised, confident, and sometimes prima donna analysts. Leadership, for Koll, was not about title or positional power. It was about showing that he could perform, protect the team, make others look good, and take responsibility when things went wrong. Trust, in his view, is created through consistency, humility, and one-on-one relationships. He believes leaders should give credit to the team and take blame themselves. He also stresses the importance of psychological safety, especially in Japan, where fear of failure can limit creativity. Koll deliberately discussed his own mistakes and encouraged analysts to examine failed reports, not as shameful episodes but as learning opportunities. This approach helped reduce defensiveness and made it easier for talented people to speak openly. Creativity, he believes, exists in Japanese teams just as it does anywhere else. The challenge is unlocking it. In brainstorming, the leader must protect unusual ideas and the people who offer them. The outlier, the odd thinker, the person who challenges the consensus may hold the breakthrough. A strong leader prevents early judgement from killing ideas before they can evolve. Koll also cautions against superficial engagement rituals. Going drinking with the team may work for some leaders, but only if it is authentic. People recognise insincerity quickly. Real engagement comes from emotional intelligence, individual attention, and demonstrating that the leader genuinely manages for the team rather than simply managing upward. Ultimately, Koll defines leadership as inspiring individual team members to become better than themselves. In Japan, that means balancing global standards with local realities, protecting the team while challenging them, respecting hierarchy while creating trust, and turning one plus one into three. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is unique because relationships sit behind performance. Koll stresses that data, analysis, and results matter, but they are never enough by themselves. In Japan, the leader must understand the people, teams, and communities behind the numbers. This is especially important because Japanese companies often do not market themselves aggressively or explain their strengths in the polished style common in the United States. The leader must therefore uncover the real story through trust, observation, and long-term relationship-building. Concepts such as nemawashi, consensus, ringi-sho, and hierarchy are not simply bureaucratic customs; they shape how trust is built and how decisions move. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives struggle when they assume that headquarters’ methods can be imposed unchanged on Japan. Koll is clear that “our way or the highway” does not work. The foreign leader’s natural advantage is the connection to headquarters, but that advantage can be used well or badly. If the leader simply says yes to New York or London, the local team will quickly lose trust. If the leader defends Japan’s way of working and helps headquarters understand local realities, credibility grows. The best leaders translate in both directions: they make global strategy understandable locally and make local intelligence valuable globally. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Koll’s comments suggest that Japan is less risk-averse than often assumed, but more sensitive to failure, judgement, and uncertainty. In analytical teams, mistakes are inevitable. A good analyst may be right only slightly more than half the time. The issue is not avoiding error, but learning from it. In Japan, where failure can carry stigma, the leader must create psychological safety. Koll did this by openly discussing his own wrong forecasts and encouraging others to analyse mistakes without shame. In this sense, the real leadership challenge is not risk avoidance but uncertainty avoidance: helping people act, learn, and improve even when outcomes are not guaranteed. What leadership style actually works? The leadership style that works is humble, credible, protective, and performance-based. Koll believes leaders must be player-coaches. They must show they can perform the work, face clients, take difficult questions, and contribute directly to results. At the same time, they must give credit to team members and take blame themselves. This combination is powerful in Japan because people watch leaders closely. They notice whether the leader’s actions match the message. A leader who protects the team, supports dissenters, and makes others look good earns lasting trust. How can technology help? Technology helps when it supports better process, decision intelligence, and organisational learning, but it does not replace human judgement. Koll described how even a change in production deadlines or software systems could create major disruption because people had deeply embedded ways of working. The leadership task is to manage these transitions firmly and respectfully. In modern terms, tools such as decision intelligence, digital twins, workflow analytics, and AI-supported reporting can help teams understand trade-offs, test scenarios, and improve execution. However, technology only works when leaders respect the human side of adoption: habits, pride, expertise, and fear of disruption. Does language proficiency matter? Koll learned Japanese early, during his time as a student in Kyoto, and that gave him a strong foundation. However, he does not argue that every foreign leader must become fully fluent to succeed. More important is the ability to build relationships with customers, understand the local business environment, and help the team deliver results. Language helps, but humility, curiosity, and direct engagement with clients matter more. A leader who cannot speak perfect Japanese but can make the team look good, win customer trust, and represent Japan effectively to headquarters can still succeed. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate leadership lesson is that leaders exist to make others better. Koll defines a true leader as someone who inspires individual team members to become better than themselves. That requires trust, courage, humility, and emotional intelligence. It also requires the ability to select lieutenants wisely, balance different personalities, protect odd ideas, and celebrate periods when the team is simply performing well. Leadership is not constant disruption. Sometimes the right move is to recognise that the team is “in the zone” and preserve momentum. The best leader helps the team become more than the sum of its parts. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Georg Loeer — Previous Head of NRW Global Business Japan
05/15/2026
Georg Loeer — Previous Head of NRW Global Business Japan
“I’ve always been a very democratic leader.” “You have to listen to them, and you have to convince them to work with you.” “It is insistence on getting the feedback that is extremely important.” “Trust is a key word for doing business in Japan.” “Leadership is, first of all, to stand up and raise your voice.” Georg Loeer has spent much of his life connected to Japan, beginning with his birth in Tokyo in 1955 while his father served as a German diplomat. After returning to Japan as a young adult in the 1970s, he studied Japanese intensively at Sophia University and ICU before building a career across banking, investment, trade, and international business development. His career included senior roles with BHF Bank in Frankfurt and Tokyo, Deutsche Bank in Jakarta during the Asian financial crisis, Bayerische Landesbank in Tokyo and Hong Kong, and Eurohypo, where he helped establish operations in Japan. After leaving banking, he founded his own consulting company and later moved into trade and investment promotion through NRW Global Business Japan. His career arc reflects adaptability, cross-cultural fluency, and a practical understanding of how leadership in Japan requires trust, patience, curiosity, and the ability to connect global headquarters with local Japanese realities. Narrative Summary Georg Loeer’s leadership story is deeply interwoven with Japan’s post-war internationalisation, German-Japanese business relations, and the evolution of foreign financial institutions in Asia. Born in Tokyo and later returning as a young adult, Loeer developed an early appreciation for Japan’s cultural depth, regional diversity, and business discipline. His exposure to Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Nara, Tokyo, and later the wider Asian region gave him a long lens through which to understand leadership in Japan not as a fixed formula, but as a patient process of earning trust, interpreting context, and helping people move beyond their normal track without derailing them. His banking career began with BHF Bank in Frankfurt, where he became the “Japan guy” connecting German headquarters with Japanese relationships. When he moved to Tokyo in 1992, he entered a branch staffed entirely by Japanese colleagues and learned quickly that one of the most important roles of an expatriate leader was translation in the broadest sense. It was not only about language. It was about explaining Japanese working styles to headquarters, defending quiet but highly productive Japanese employees, and helping the local team understand global expectations. This capacity to bridge worlds became a defining theme of his leadership. Loeer worked in conservative banking environments, yet repeatedly pushed for change, including derivatives-based hedging, long-term funding strategies, and new product thinking. His view of Japan’s supposed risk aversion is nuanced. He recognises that Japan values stability, hierarchy, and administrative guidance, but he also argues that leaders must test the waters, ask better questions, and create safe ways for people to challenge themselves. In this sense, Japan is not simply risk-averse; it is often uncertainty-averse. The leader’s role is to reduce ambiguity, create confidence, and show a credible path forward. His experience closing BHF Bank’s Tokyo branch was a bitter but formative lesson. Leadership, in that moment, meant standing between headquarters and employees, communicating a difficult decision, and supporting people into new roles. Later, during the Asian financial crisis in Jakarta, he shifted from relationship banking to workout banking, learning again that leadership is tested most severely when conditions reverse. At NRW Global Business Japan, Loeer’s leadership became more entrepreneurial. He encouraged industry research, company analysis, and business proposal development, bringing a consulting mindset into a government-owned trade and investment context. This reflects decision intelligence in practice: understanding industries, identifying promising companies, analysing readiness for Europe, and helping clients create their own success stories. His leadership philosophy is democratic but not passive. He believes leaders must communicate mission, listen carefully, nudge Japanese team members to speak up, and ask two, three, or four times when silence hides valuable insight. Concepts such as nemawashi, consensus, and ringi-sho matter in Japan, but Loeer’s message is that foreign leaders should not be trapped by stereotypes. They should study the market, identify opinion leaders, engage stakeholders, and come to Japan without fear. Above all, they should build trust by showing empathy, standing behind their people, and delivering results. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is unique because hierarchy, respect, silence, and consensus often shape how people participate. Loeer notes that Japanese employees are usually well-educated, honest, open, and hardworking, yet they may not immediately speak up in meetings. In many Japanese organisations, the most senior person speaks first, while others wait, observe, and avoid causing disruption. This makes engagement a leadership responsibility. A leader cannot simply ask once, “Are there any questions?” and expect open discussion. Loeer argues that the leader must ask again, invite individuals directly, and create a safe atmosphere where feedback becomes acceptable. This is where nemawashi, consensus-building, and informal trust development become essential. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives struggle in Japan when they arrive with preconceptions. Loeer advises leaders not to come with the mindset that Japan is a difficult market. Instead, they should study the market, identify key opinion leaders, understand competitors and partners, and engage stakeholders directly. Another common struggle is managing the relationship between headquarters and the local organisation. Foreign managers must explain Japanese behaviour to headquarters and global expectations to Japanese teams. This requires patience, judgement, and cultural translation. Without that bridge, headquarters may misread quiet employees as unproductive, while Japanese teams may see global demands as abrupt or insensitive. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Loeer’s answer is more subtle than the usual cliché. Japan can appear risk-averse, particularly in conservative industries such as banking, where regulation, hierarchy, and responsibility weigh heavily. Yet his career shows that Japanese teams can embrace change when leaders reduce uncertainty and clarify the reward. In the 1980s and 1990s, banks often tested boundaries under administrative guidance, and Loeer encouraged his teams to explore new products and opportunities. The better description may be uncertainty avoidance rather than simple risk aversion. Leaders need to provide context, direction, and confidence so people can move beyond their comfort zone without feeling exposed. What leadership style actually works? Loeer describes himself as a democratic leader, somewhere between top-down and bottom-up. He believes the leader must communicate mission and targets clearly, but also remain open to ideas from team members, interns, and younger colleagues. In small teams especially, everyone matters. Leadership requires listening, persuasion, and shared purpose. At the same time, it is not passive facilitation. Loeer believes leaders must stand up, raise their voice, show the path, and encourage people to think entrepreneurially. This balance of direction and inclusion is particularly effective in Japan, where consensus matters but teams still need a leader willing to define the road ahead. How can technology help? Technology was not the centre of Loeer’s interview, but his approach to industry research points directly to the value of modern decision intelligence. At NRW Global Business Japan, his team analysed industries, companies, growth patterns, overseas activities, and readiness for European expansion. Today, technologies such as digital twins, data analytics, AI-driven market mapping, and decision intelligence tools can strengthen this process. They can help leaders visualise scenarios, compare markets, and reduce uncertainty before major decisions. In Japan, where careful preparation and evidence matter, technology can support nemawashi and consensus-building by giving stakeholders a clearer shared picture. Does language proficiency matter? Loeer gives a balanced answer. He has met successful executives who operated in Japan with very little Japanese, and he has also seen younger professionals succeed through excellent language ability. Sometimes, speaking perfect Japanese may not be necessary, and even broken Japanese can help build warmth without creating distance. However, Loeer strongly believes that studying Japanese language, history, economic history, and business culture is a major advantage. Language is not only a communication tool; it is a gateway into how companies, institutions, and relationships evolved. For leaders in Japan, cultural literacy matters as much as vocabulary. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is that leadership in Japan rests on trust. Loeer says trust is a key word for doing business in Japan and is paramount when leading a team. Leaders earn trust by standing behind employees, taking responsibility when necessary, showing empathy, delivering results, and helping customers create success stories. They must also encourage people to think entrepreneurially, take considered risks, and remain guided by personal, corporate, and societal values. For Loeer, leadership means standing in front of the team, engaging them, showing the path forward, and taking that path together. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Jerome Chouchan — President, Godiva Japan
05/08/2026
Jerome Chouchan — President, Godiva Japan
“When you show honesty or your best effort, then people finally recognise you.” “You have to find a way to go directly to the consumer and get insight from them.” “You respect people. You respect where they come from, the knowledge they have of the business, and you try to learn.” “To be innovative, you need a driving force from the top.” “Right shooting always results in a hit.” Jerome Chouchan is President of Godiva Japan and a long-serving international executive with a distinctive career arc across premium brands, retail, gifting, food, and Japanese business culture. Originally from France, he first came to Japan at the age of 25 through a French programme that allowed young graduates to work overseas for private companies in export development. His first assignment was with Mellerio, a high jewellery company based on the Rue de la Paix in Paris, where he opened the Japan office and built the business through department store partnerships and shop-in-shop operations. He later moved to Lacoste, managing licensing and brand coordination, and then to Hennessy, where he was responsible for the Japan business unit while based in France and travelling regularly between France and Japan. His first fully integrated P&L leadership role in Japan came with Lladró, the Spanish porcelain figurine brand, in a joint venture involving Mitsui & Co. There, he led a team of around 70 people and developed major market innovations, including porcelain versions of traditional Japanese Boys’ Day and Girls’ Day figurines. At Godiva Japan, Chouchan brought together his experience in premium branding, retail channels, Japanese gifting culture, consumer insight, and bold strategic execution. Under his leadership, Godiva Japan tripled its business in seven years, expanded into new channels such as convenience stores for premium ice cream, and created high-impact campaigns such as the famous “stop giving giri choco” Valentine’s message. His leadership is also deeply shaped by more than 30 years of kyudo, Japanese archery, and by the principle that correct form, discipline, and intent produce the right result. Jerome Chouchan’s leadership journey in Japan is a story of adaptability, cultural sensitivity, consumer insight, and disciplined boldness. Arriving in Japan at only 25 years old, without Japanese language ability and without a large team around him, he began his career in a challenging environment where youth and foreignness could easily have undermined credibility. His early experience opening the Japan office for Mellerio taught him a central lesson about leadership in Japan: respect is earned through sincerity, effort, and presence. In a culture where age, hierarchy, and experience carry weight, Chouchan learned that honesty and visible commitment can overcome initial scepticism. Across his career, he repeatedly entered industries where he was not the obvious candidate. Jewellery, fashion, cognac, porcelain figurines, and chocolate all appear different on the surface, yet Chouchan identified the connecting threads: brand authenticity, retail, gifting, craftsmanship, and emotional value. This ability to recognise deeper patterns helped him move successfully from one sector to another. At Lladró, he discovered that innovation in Japan does not always come from importing foreign ideas. Sometimes it comes from seeing Japanese culture with fresh eyes. By observing Hinamatsuri and Boys’ Day figurines as part of the same emotional and decorative category as porcelain, he helped create a new product concept that Japanese department store buyers initially doubted, but consumers embraced. His approach to leadership has consistently centred on the gemba: the real place where customers, staff, and business reality meet. Whether selling porcelain pieces himself in department store exhibitions or visiting Godiva stores with his team, Chouchan demonstrates that leaders must understand the front line directly. This is especially important in Japan, where teams quickly sense whether a leader respects their work or merely issues instructions from above. For foreign executives, the first three months are decisive. Asking questions, visiting customers, learning the business, and showing the ability to make decisions are essential to building trust. At Godiva Japan, Chouchan inherited an established brand that many outsiders thought had limited room for further growth. Instead, he saw untapped potential. His decision to concentrate marketing investment on television for Valentine’s Day challenged internal assumptions that premium brands should avoid mass media. The result was immediate growth and increased credibility. His move to sell Godiva premium ice cream through convenience stores provoked similar concerns about brand dilution, but his logic was based on consumer behaviour: if most ice cream in Japan is bought in convenience stores, premium ice cream should be where the consumers are. Perhaps his most famous move was the “stop giving giri choco” Valentine’s campaign, which challenged the social obligation of women giving chocolates to male colleagues. The campaign was not anti-gifting; it was pro-authenticity. It reframed gifting as something meaningful rather than automatic. The impact extended far beyond paid media, generating television discussion, social debate, and pride among female employees. Chouchan’s leadership philosophy is also shaped by kyudo. In Japanese archery, one does not obsess over the target; one focuses on correct form. For Chouchan, this became a business metaphor. Rather than anxiously chasing numbers every day, leaders should focus on the right products, the right customer insight, the right culture, and the right execution. If the form is correct, the target will be hit. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan requires close attention to trust, hierarchy, non-verbal signals, and the first impression a leader creates. Jerome Chouchan explains that Japanese teams are highly skilled at sensing whether a leader respects them or looks down on them. This judgement can happen quickly and accurately. For foreign executives, credibility does not come automatically from title or headquarters appointment. It comes from going to the gemba, asking questions, respecting existing knowledge, learning from the team, and showing a willingness to work hard alongside others. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they underestimate the importance of local context, consumer behaviour, and internal consensus. Japan is not a market where a leader can simply impose a global template and expect smooth execution. Concepts such as nemawashi, ringi-sho, consensus, and uncertainty avoidance influence how decisions are understood and accepted. Chouchan’s experience shows that leaders must balance respect for process with the courage to decide. If a leader only seeks harmony, the business can become slow. If a leader ignores local reality, trust is lost. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Chouchan’s career suggests that Japan is not simply risk-averse; rather, it is highly sensitive to poorly framed risk. Department store buyers initially doubted Lladró’s Japanese festival figurines because they questioned why a Spanish brand should reinterpret a Japanese tradition. Godiva Japan staff questioned whether premium ice cream should be sold in convenience stores. These reactions reflected concern over brand positioning and uncertainty, not a rejection of innovation itself. When Chouchan reframed the decision around consumer behaviour, premium pricing, channel logic, and controlled experimentation, the risk became manageable. What leadership style actually works? The leadership style that works is respectful, decisive, optimistic, and deeply engaged with the front line. Chouchan believes leaders must give people hope and show a positive way forward. He does not advocate reckless disruption. Instead, he combines listening with conviction. He asks questions, observes the market, protects his team when pushing back against headquarters, and makes decisions when needed. He also recognises that not everyone can innovate while running the core business. This led him to create a transformation unit separate from the day-to-day machine, giving younger and more entrepreneurial people space to create new products quickly. How can technology help? Although the interview focuses more on leadership and innovation than on technology itself, Chouchan’s approach aligns closely with modern decision intelligence. He uses consumer insight, data, scenario thinking, and experimentation to reduce uncertainty. His channel decision for Godiva ice cream was based on understanding where consumers actually buy ice cream. His transformation unit operates with a faster, more iterative model, closer to digital-native thinking than traditional product development. In the future, tools such as digital twins, AI-driven consumer modelling, and advanced demand forecasting could further support this kind of leadership by allowing companies to test assumptions before large-scale execution. Does language proficiency matter? Japanese proficiency helps, but Chouchan does not present fluency as an absolute requirement. His view is that learning even some Japanese opens the mind and brings a leader closer to the country. The attitude matters. A foreign leader who learns words, listens carefully, and shows interest in Japanese culture sends a positive signal. Language is not only a communication tool; it is also a gesture of respect. In Japan, that gesture can strengthen trust and engagement. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is to focus on correct form rather than obsessing over the target. Drawing from kyudo, Chouchan explains that in Japanese archery, the archer does not aim anxiously at the target. Instead, the archer focuses on the correct mental and physical form. In business, this means concentrating on the consumer, the product, the campaign, the culture, and the execution. Numbers matter, but they are outcomes. “Right shooting always results in a hit” becomes a leadership philosophy: do the right things in the right way, and results will follow. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Paul Kraft - Previous Country Manager, Haribo Japan
05/01/2026
Paul Kraft - Previous Country Manager, Haribo Japan
“The amount of time you need to spend listening in Japan is very high.” “You have to turn up your EQ sensitivity or your EQ radar very, very high.” “No matter what, love it.” “Feedback should be ninety percent positive.” “Leadership is achieving the organisation’s goal by maximising the potential of your team.” Paul Kraft is the Country Manager for Haribo in Japan and a seasoned food and beverage executive whose career has crossed global brands, entrepreneurial ventures, and distributor-led market development. His relationship with Japan began when he first visited in 1991 on a school trip after studying finance and economics, and he later returned to Osaka to teach English before building his early career in the United States as a product and brand manager in the frozen food sector. Starbucks then recruited him to establish its consumer packaged goods office in Tokyo, where his team expanded the brand beyond coffee shops into convenience store cup coffee, canned coffee, and dry coffee formats. He later launched Honey Baked Ham in Japan through an omnichannel strategy covering food service, retail, and online sales, before joining Nespresso to lead the business-to-business group serving hotels, restaurants, and off-premise clients. At Haribo, Kraft became the company’s first person on the ground in Japan, guiding the distributor, shaping strategy, and acting as the bridge between the Japanese market and the global organisation. His career arc reflects adaptability in Japan: learning when to push, when to listen, when to use nemawashi, how to reduce uncertainty, and how to lead through consensus, precedent, relationship depth, and trust. Paul Kraft’s leadership journey in Japan is a practical study in how global executives must adapt ambition, speed, and commercial logic to a business culture that places deep value on patience, consensus, trust, and emotional intelligence. His connection with Japan began in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Japanese business influence was highly visible internationally. Toyota, Japanese management methods, and major Japanese investments overseas created a sense that understanding Japan was essential for future business leaders. Kraft studied finance and economics, visited Japan for the first time in 1991, and fell in love with the country. After graduating, he returned to Osaka to teach English before moving back to the United States and entering the food business. His early food career gave him broad commercial exposure. He worked as a product and brand manager for a privately held frozen food company, handling brands across categories such as ice cream, pizza, and frozen egg rolls. He also gained experience in research, brand management, and mergers and acquisitions. The turning point came when Starbucks recruited him to return to Japan and set up a consumer packaged goods office in Tokyo. Within three months, he sold his cars, sold his house, gave away his tools, and moved to Japan. It was a decisive commitment to the market. At Starbucks, Kraft’s team was responsible for everything outside the coffee shops, including convenience store cup coffee, canned coffee, different drinks, and packaged coffee products. Japan’s vast convenience store network meant the business could scale dramatically. At one point, he believed Starbucks may have been selling more cups of coffee outside the stores than inside them. Yet the opportunity came with culture shock. Kraft encountered long, meandering meetings with Japanese partners where the purpose was not necessarily to decide, but to discuss. Coming from a Western business environment that valued agendas, pre-reads, data, speed, and explicit outcomes, he found this difficult. Partners might resist data, avoid firm conclusions, or reject new ideas because they had no precedent. This introduced one of Kraft’s central leadership lessons: frustration management is a business skill in Japan. He admits that in his early years he sometimes relied too much on visible frustration or forceful leadership. He learned that anger in Japan is not usually interpreted as strength. It is often seen as weak self-control, poor maturity, low self-awareness, and a failure to read the group. In a culture shaped by uncertainty avoidance and consensus, the leader who becomes known as a hothead loses influence. Kraft’s next major chapter, Honey Baked Ham, tested his entrepreneurial instincts. He cold-called the CEO of the American family-owned chain and convinced the company to support a Japan launch. The concept was unfamiliar in a market where honey-baked ham did not have obvious precedent. Kraft built an omnichannel model covering food service, a physical store, and online sales. He worked with local financial backers, freelancers, part-time staff, and a very lean team. The leadership challenge was not just selling a product, but selling belief. To attract employees and customers, he had to tell the story of the brand, offer the product directly, and reduce the perceived risk of joining or buying into something new. In Japan, he found that new ideas often need a “Japanese stamp of approval”. For Honey Baked Ham, that stamp came from the New Otani Hotel. Once the product was accepted by a respected, traditional, luxury Japanese hotel, the market could interpret it differently. It was no longer merely a foreign idea. It had local legitimacy. This is decision intelligence in a Japanese setting: understanding that data alone is not enough if social proof, trust signals, respected reference points, and emotional confidence are missing. At Nespresso, Kraft moved from entrepreneurial uncertainty into a highly structured global organisation. Nespresso, as part of Nestlé, had strong processes, operational discipline, monthly reviews, and clear accountability systems. Kraft led the business-to-business group, serving hotels, restaurants, and off-premise clients. There, he focused on weekly one-on-ones, feedback, and structure. He maintained regular conversations with direct reports, taking notes, sharing updates, listening to their updates, and discussing future deliverables. He also saw the value of monthly operational reviews where commitments were visible and specific: who would do what by when. Red, yellow, and green status tracking created accountability, but it also required leaders to prevent people from setting themselves up to fail. At Haribo, Kraft now leads largely through influence. Haribo had existed in Japan for decades through distributors, but Kraft became the first person representing the company directly on the ground. His role is to guide the distributor, shape strategy, interpret the Japanese market for the global organisation, and influence outcomes without necessarily controlling every lever. This is leadership through relationship rather than hierarchy. For Kraft, the answer lies in patience, small-group influence, and nemawashi. Large meetings with many distributor representatives are rarely where minds are changed. The real work happens in smaller conversations, offline follow-ups, and repeated explanations of why something matters. Across the interview, Kraft’s leadership philosophy is consistent. He advocates weekly one-on-ones, positive feedback, careful listening, written notes, high EQ, and learning Japanese. He believes leaders should look for people doing things right and tell them specifically. He also believes leaders should encourage initiative, especially in Japan, where proposing an idea can itself be a courageous act. Ultimately, Kraft defines leadership as achieving the organisation’s goal by maximising the potential of the team. In Japan, that means leading with EQ rather than ego, using structure without crushing people, building consensus without losing accountability, and understanding that influence is earned through patience, presence, and trust. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is unique because authority alone is rarely enough to move people, partners, or organisations. Kraft’s experience shows that Japan places heavy emphasis on consensus, precedent, trust, and the emotional readiness of the group. A meeting may not be designed to make a decision in the Western sense. It may be designed to exchange views, test reactions, identify resistance, and prepare the ground for a later decision. This can frustrate executives who arrive expecting agendas, data, pre-reads, and immediate outcomes. However, in Japan, the visible meeting is often only one part of the decision-making process. The real work may occur before and after the formal meeting. This is where nemawashi becomes essential. Rather than forcing a decision in front of a large group, effective leaders work privately with stakeholders, listen to their concerns, explain the reason behind the proposal, and create alignment before asking for visible agreement. In some organisations, this may connect to formal mechanisms such as ringi-sho, where written proposals circulate for approval. Even when ringi-sho is not used formally, the underlying cultural logic remains: people want to avoid surprises, protect relationships, and reduce uncertainty before committing. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives struggle in Japan when they assume that leadership methods which worked elsewhere will automatically work here. Kraft describes coming from a Western environment where meetings were purposeful, decisions were expected, and data played a central role. In Japan, he encountered long discussions without agendas, partners who were not prepared to discuss data, and resistance to ideas because they had never been done before. For a Western leader, this can look inefficient or evasive. For Japanese counterparts, it may reflect caution, uncertainty avoidance, and the desire to avoid exposing the group to visible failure. Another reason global executives struggle is emotional pacing. Kraft admits that his own frustration management was a multi-year learning process. Early in his Japan career, he sometimes believed that a leader had to pound the table, push harder, or force things to happen. Over time, he realised that visible anger usually weakens credibility in Japan. It may be interpreted as poor self-control, low maturity, insufficient self-awareness, or an inability to operate inside the group. Leaders who become known as hotheads lose influence. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Kraft’s experience suggests that Japan is not simply risk-averse; it is highly sensitive to uncertainty, precedent, and failure visibility. People may resist new ideas not because they dislike innovation, but because they cannot forecast the outcome, cannot point to a precedent, or cannot see how failure will be managed. His Starbucks orange mocha example illustrates this clearly. Even with data and enthusiasm, Japanese counterparts resisted because they could not forecast something that had never been done before. The absence of precedent made the idea difficult to accept. At Honey Baked Ham, Kraft had to reduce uncertainty on multiple fronts. He needed employees to believe in a small start-up-like venture, customers to accept an unfamiliar product, and business partners to see legitimacy in the concept. He did this through storytelling, product sampling, financial backing, and visible local validation. The New Otani Hotel became a crucial Japanese stamp of approval. Once a respected Japanese institution accepted the product, the perceived risk fell. This is a useful lesson for leaders: in Japan, risk is often managed through social proof, credibility markers, and trusted reference points. Decision intelligence in Japan requires more than analysis. It requires understanding how people feel safe enough to act. What leadership style actually works? The leadership style that works in Japan is patient, structured, emotionally intelligent, and specific. Kraft repeatedly returns to the importance of weekly one-on-ones. He used them not as casual check-ins, but as disciplined leadership routines. He wrote down the person’s name, the date, his update, their update, the future focus, and the deliverables. Over time, this built trust and created a rhythm of communication. In Japan, where employees may hesitate to speak up in larger forums, one-on-ones provide a safer space for concerns, ideas, and coaching. Kraft also emphasises feedback, especially positive feedback. He argues that feedback should be ninety percent positive. This does not mean avoiding problems. It means noticing specific behaviours that should continue and reinforcing them. At Nespresso, Kraft also saw the value of structured accountability. Monthly operational reviews asked who would do what by when, using red-yellow-green status tracking. This helped cut through ambiguity and group responsibility. The most effective style is not soft consensus or hard command. It is a combination of empathy, structure, clarity, and support. How can technology help? Technology can help leadership in Japan when it reduces uncertainty, improves shared understanding, and supports better decision-making. Kraft’s career points repeatedly to the importance of data, forecasting, operational reviews, and structured follow-up. At Starbucks, he wanted data-driven conversations with partners. At Nespresso, process and dashboards made accountability visible. At Haribo, he works in a market where convenience stores are highly sophisticated and retail execution depends on understanding channels, forecasts, and consumer behaviour. Modern tools such as retail analytics, AI-supported forecasting, digital twins, scenario planning dashboards, and decision intelligence platforms can be powerful in Japan because they allow teams to test ideas before committing. In a high-consensus culture, technology can create a shared factual base. It can help people compare options, visualise consequences, and reduce the fear of the unknown. Digital twins, for example, can allow leaders to model supply chain, distribution, retail placement, or product launch scenarios without requiring immediate real-world commitment. This can lower emotional resistance and make decisions feel safer. However, technology cannot replace trust. In Japan, data may be necessary, but it is rarely sufficient. Leaders must still explain the why, conduct nemawashi, listen to objections, and create confidence among stakeholders. Does language proficiency matter? Language proficiency matters in Japan because it signals respect, commitment, and seriousness. Kraft says leaders should try to learn Japanese, even if they do not become fluent. Fluency helps a leader catch nuance, understand emotional tone, and communicate directly with employees, partners, and distributors. It also helps reduce the distance that can exist between a foreign executive and a Japanese team. In a market where trust is built slowly, the effort to learn the language can itself become a stamp of approval. That said, Kraft does not suggest that language ability alone makes someone an effective leader. A fluent but impatient leader can still fail. A non-fluent but humble, consistent, and respectful leader can still build trust. The key is effort. Trying to learn Japanese shows that the executive is not merely passing through. It shows they are willing to adapt to the local context, not simply demand that the local context adapt to them. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate leadership lesson from Kraft’s experience is that leaders in Japan must maximise people’s potential by building trust, reducing uncertainty, and communicating with discipline. His definition is clear: leadership is achieving the organisation’s goal by maximising the potential of the team. That requires more than setting targets. It requires creating the conditions in which people can contribute, speak up, try ideas, receive feedback, and accept accountability without fear of humiliation. Kraft’s career shows that Japan rewards leaders who can operate as bridges. At Starbucks, he bridged global brand ambition and Japanese retail realities. At Honey Baked Ham, he bridged an unfamiliar American food concept and Japanese legitimacy signals. At Nespresso, he bridged global process discipline and local team development. At Haribo, he bridges headquarters, distributor partners, retailers, and the Japanese market. The best leaders in Japan do not abandon ambition. They adapt how ambition is communicated and implemented. They listen longer, give more positive feedback, use smaller meetings, manage their frustration, explain the why, and build consensus before demanding action. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Wolfgang Bierer — President of Endeavor SBC
04/25/2026
Wolfgang Bierer — President of Endeavor SBC
“Leadership is really like leading by example.” “I come in. I listen a lot.” “Do what you say.” “You need to gain the trust of the people and show that you actually care.” “Everything can be trained.” Wolfgang Bierer is the President of Endeavor SBC and a long-term Japan business builder whose career has moved across engineering, consulting, retail, fashion, medical devices, software, and interim executive leadership. Originally from Germany, he studied electrical engineering at the University of Stuttgart and first came to Japan through a German government youth leader exchange program. That early exposure led to an internship at Hitachi Software Development Centre in Totsuka, which became a full-time role after he completed his master’s thesis at Mercedes in Germany. At Hitachi, Bierer experienced Japanese corporate life from the inside, including living in a men’s dormitory and working as one of the few foreigners in the organisation. He later moved into consulting, working with Swiss and German consulting firms and spending several years back in Germany, where he completed an executive MBA with the St. Gallen Business School. Regular assignments back to Japan eventually convinced him to return and build his own company. He founded Endeavor SBC after moving to Japan with his wife, two suitcases each, and €100,000 in savings. His first major consulting opportunity came through Adidas, where he helped rescue a troubled SAP project in Japan. From there, he built a reputation in performance-based consulting, inventory optimisation, process improvement, retail operations, and Japan market entry. Over time, he became involved in running, setting up, acquiring, or representing multiple companies, including German and European brands in software, fashion accessories, shoes, bags, and premium retail. Bierer’s adaptability in Japan comes from his willingness to get close to the work itself. He has sold products in stores, reorganised warehouses, built back-office systems, negotiated with department stores, hired staff, secured medical device licensing, and acted as interim president for companies entering or restructuring in Japan. His leadership is defined by hands-on execution, listening, process discipline, cross-business synergies, and earning trust through action rather than title. Wolfgang Bierer’s leadership story in Japan is not the conventional tale of an expatriate executive parachuted into a single subsidiary with a fixed playbook from headquarters. It is the story of a German engineer who entered Japan through curiosity, learned the operating reality of Japanese companies from the inside, and built a portfolio of businesses by combining process discipline, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and deep practical engagement with people. His first serious experience in Japan came through Hitachi, where he worked in software development and lived in a traditional men’s dormitory. That early exposure gave him more than technical experience. It gave him a grounded understanding of hierarchy, group dynamics, implicit communication, endurance, and the daily operating rhythm of Japanese corporate life. Rather than observing Japan from the outside, he experienced the systems and expectations that shape behaviour inside Japanese organisations. Bierer’s later move into consulting sharpened his ability to diagnose business processes. His work with Adidas in Japan, particularly around SAP and business process reform, became a launching point for Endeavor SBC. He developed a methodology centred on keeping systems standard wherever possible and changing the process rather than endlessly customising the software. That practical discipline reflects a key leadership question in Japan: how does a leader introduce change without creating unnecessary resistance? His answer is not to force transformation through slogans, but to make the process visible, measurable, and understandable. A recurring theme in his career is the difference between risk and uncertainty. Bierer accepts risk when he understands the process, the numbers, and the levers available to him. His performance-based consulting model, where compensation is tied to improved results, would seem risky to many executives. Yet for him, the uncertainty is reduced through data, inventory analysis, decision intelligence, and a clear view of waste. In industries such as fashion, sports, retail, and accessories, he sees inventory not as a static asset but as a source of hidden cost, operational drag, and strategic danger. His leadership style is highly hands-on. When entering a struggling company as interim president, he does not begin with distance, hierarchy, or command-and-control. He listens, studies the team, identifies cost drivers, and quickly looks for operational improvements. He believes leaders in Japan must be close enough to the work to understand it and close enough to the people to earn trust. This is where concepts such as nemawashi, consensus, and uncertainty avoidance become practical rather than theoretical. People need to see that the leader understands the business, respects the team, and will not abandon them when conditions become difficult. Technology matters in Bierer’s world, but only when tied to process and decision quality. SAP, IT cost reduction, websites, digital workflows, checklists, and potentially tools such as digital twins all matter because they help leaders see the system. Yet technology cannot replace judgement, trust, or leadership presence. The leader still has to go to the warehouse, visit the store, meet the customer, and understand what is happening on the floor. Ultimately, Bierer’s model of leadership in Japan is built on credibility through proximity. He leads by example, pays staff before himself, rewards contribution regardless of age, and expects people to go the extra mile because he does the same. His story shows that leadership in Japan is not about mastering every cultural term or speaking perfect Japanese. It is about building trust, learning the business deeply, communicating with care, and showing through action that people can believe what the leader says. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is unique because trust is built through proximity, consistency, and careful attention to how people interpret instructions. Bierer’s experience shows that Japanese teams often listen closely, weigh the leader’s words carefully, and work hard to match expectations. This makes clarity essential. Leaders cannot rely on vague direction and assume the team will independently interpret the strategic intent in the same way as a Western organisation might. Japan’s leadership environment is also shaped by consensus, nemawashi, ringi-sho thinking, and uncertainty avoidance. People often want to understand the process, reduce ambiguity, and confirm that the group is aligned before moving forward. Bierer’s approach is to get close to the team, understand the operational detail, and build credibility by showing that he is not merely issuing instructions from above. For him, leadership in Japan requires showing care, being approachable, and proving competence through action. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives struggle when they assume that European or American leadership approaches will automatically work in Japan. Bierer notes that some international leaders become frustrated when teams do not operate in the way they expect. They may see hesitation or heavy checking as weakness, when in reality the team may be trying to interpret instructions carefully and avoid mistakes. Another struggle is distance. Executives who remain in an “ivory tower” or manage only from the top miss the operational detail that matters in Japan. Bierer argues that leaders need to sit with people, learn the business, and understand how work is actually done. Without that, they may misread the team, misdiagnose performance problems, and fail to gain trust. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Bierer’s story suggests that Japan is often better understood as uncertainty-averse rather than simply risk-averse. Risk can be accepted when the process is clear, the data is strong, and people understand the decision pathway. In his own career, Bierer took significant risks: founding Endeavor SBC, accepting performance-based consulting, buying inventory, opening retail spaces, acting as interim president, and acquiring or representing brands in Japan. The difference is that he reduces uncertainty through analysis. He studies inventory, purchasing patterns, cost structures, and operational processes. This is decision intelligence in practice. Rather than gambling, he turns risk into a structured calculation. In Japan, this matters because teams and partners often need to see the logic, not just the ambition. What leadership style actually works? The leadership style that works for Bierer is hands-on, direct, fair, and close to the work. He describes leadership as leading by example. That means going to the warehouse, selling in the store, joining the team during busy periods, checking processes personally, and showing people that no task is beneath the leader. He also values listening. When he enters a company, he studies the team and the business before imposing change. He looks for people who understand his direction and can become part of his trusted core team. At the same time, he recognises that underperformance must be addressed. His approach combines patience, coaching, process clarity, and accountability. How can technology help? Technology helps when it improves visibility, discipline, and decision quality. Bierer’s work with SAP, IT systems, websites, back-office processes, and cost reduction shows that technology can support leadership when it is connected to the business model. He is especially focused on standardising systems and improving processes rather than allowing unnecessary customisation or inflated costs. In a modern context, tools such as decision intelligence, digital twins, inventory analytics, and process dashboards could strengthen the same principles he already applies. They can help leaders simulate outcomes, identify waste, monitor cash flow, and understand operational bottlenecks. However, Bierer’s example also shows that technology must not become a substitute for human closeness. Leaders still need to meet people, listen, and understand the floor-level reality. Does language proficiency matter? Language matters, but Bierer does not believe foreign executives should assume they can quickly master Japanese to the level required for nuance. His advice is to invest in someone who can act as a communication bridge. This person helps the leader communicate intent clearly and understand what is happening beneath the surface. The larger lesson is that communication is not only vocabulary. It is interpretation, expectation setting, cultural reading, and trust-building. Leaders need to know whether the team has truly understood the message, whether concerns are being hidden, and whether instructions are being interpreted too literally. Language support can reduce uncertainty and prevent misalignment. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate leadership lesson from Bierer is that people trust what leaders consistently do, not what they claim. He pays staff even when he misses his own salary. He supports temporary workers during downturns. He rewards performance regardless of age. He gives young people responsibility and creates opportunities for those who may not fit traditional Japanese corporate environments. His leadership lesson is also practical: get close to the people, get close to the process, and do what is promised. In Japan, where trust, credibility, and consistency carry enormous weight, this approach gives leaders the foundation to make change possible. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Frank Packard — Founder & Previous President, AAA Partners Japan
04/17/2026
Frank Packard — Founder & Previous President, AAA Partners Japan
“Very few people in finance can make a declarative sentence.” “If you can scale your message from thirty seconds to three minutes, you’ve got it made.” “We want to only do legal business, it has to be rewarding, and it has to be fun.” You have to sit on your hands in Japan — silence doesn’t mean failure.” "The Japanese want to be recognised as individuals, not as ‘we Japanese’.” Frank Packard is the Founder and President of AAA Partners Japan, a Tokyo-based firm specialising in fund placement and financial advisory. Born in Japan and educated in the United States, including at Princeton University, Packard began his career on Wall Street before returning to Japan during the 1980s financial boom. His career spans major institutions including Payne Webber, Drexel Burnham, Bankers Trust, Bank of America, and HSBC, with leadership roles across Tokyo and Hong Kong. Over nearly four decades, he has built deep expertise in project finance, private equity, and cross-border investment. Known for his practical leadership philosophy and adaptability, Packard has navigated multiple financial cycles, regulatory changes, and cultural environments, ultimately building his own entrepreneurial platform in Japan. Frank Packard’s leadership journey is a study in adaptability, communication clarity, and cultural navigation. Growing up in Japan before returning as a finance professional during the 1980s boom, he experienced firsthand the intersection of global capital and Japanese business practices. His early insight—that the ability to communicate clearly is a competitive advantage—became a cornerstone of his career. In industries filled with technical complexity, Packard differentiated himself by simplifying ideas and delivering them with precision. His leadership style evolved through exposure to different markets. In Tokyo, he challenged hierarchical norms by adopting open-plan team structures decades before they became standard. Sitting alongside his team rather than above them, he fostered collaboration and transparency, disrupting traditional expectations of authority. This approach reflected a broader philosophy: leadership is not about position, but about proximity and shared accountability. Packard also developed a nuanced understanding of Japanese workplace dynamics. He recognised that beneath the perception of uniformity lies strong individuality. Rather than forcing Western-style engagement, he adapted by allowing relationships to develop organically. This aligns closely with practices like nemawashi and consensus-building, where trust is cultivated gradually rather than asserted. His experience across Tokyo and Hong Kong highlighted the importance of context in leadership. While Japan required patience and sensitivity to silence and ambiguity, Hong Kong demanded navigation of cultural tensions and competitive dynamics among multinational teams. These contrasting environments reinforced his belief that leadership must be situational, not formulaic. Entrepreneurially, Packard demonstrated resilience by pivoting through financial crises and regulatory shifts. The introduction of Japan’s Financial Instruments Exchange Law reshaped his business model, pushing him toward a highly compliant, dual-licensed structure that allowed flexibility in revenue streams. His mantra—legal, rewarding, and fun—guided decision-making and client selection, reinforcing both ethical standards and cultural fit. A defining element of his leadership is empowerment. By pushing team members to gain qualifications and take ownership of client relationships, he expanded their capabilities and engagement. This reflects elements of decision intelligence, where informed individuals contribute to better outcomes rather than relying solely on hierarchical direction. Ultimately, Packard’s career illustrates that success in Japan requires more than technical expertise. It demands cultural fluency, patience with ambiguity, and a commitment to building trust over time. His approach blends Western directness with Japanese sensitivity, creating a hybrid leadership model suited to an increasingly globalised business environment. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is shaped by subtlety, patience, and a strong emphasis on consensus. Unlike Western environments driven by urgency and individual assertion, Japanese organisations often rely on processes like nemawashi and ringi-sho to build agreement. Packard highlights the importance of silence, noting that pauses in conversation are not signs of failure but part of the decision-making rhythm. Leaders must resist the urge to fill gaps and instead allow space for reflection. Why do global executives struggle? Many global executives struggle because they misinterpret cultural signals. The assumption that Japan is homogeneous leads to missed opportunities to connect on an individual level. Additionally, Western communication styles—particularly sarcasm or vague commitments—can undermine trust. Packard emphasises the need for precision in language and expectations, as ambiguity can create misunderstanding in cross-cultural contexts. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Packard challenges the stereotype of Japan as risk-averse. While decision-making may appear slow, it is often thorough rather than cautious. Once consensus is achieved, execution can be swift and decisive. He points out that change in Japan can be sudden, with shifts in attitudes toward startups, crypto, and international careers occurring rapidly after long periods of stability. What leadership style actually works? A hybrid leadership style works best—combining Western clarity with Japanese sensitivity. Packard’s approach includes flattening hierarchies, fostering open communication, and empowering individuals. He also places strong emphasis on diversity, particularly the inclusion of women, which enhances team dynamics and decision-making. Trust is built through consistency, transparency, and respect for cultural norms. How can technology help? Technology plays a supporting role in enabling flexible work and communication. The shift to remote work during the pandemic highlighted both opportunities and challenges, including issues like remote harassment and privacy concerns. Packard’s adoption of cloud-based tools and flexible work policies demonstrates how technology can enhance productivity while respecting individual preferences. Does language proficiency matter? Language proficiency is important but not decisive. While fluency can facilitate communication, Packard emphasises clarity over complexity. The ability to convey ideas simply and effectively is more valuable than perfect language skills. This aligns with his broader belief in the power of declarative communication. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is adaptability. Leaders must continuously adjust to changing environments, cultural expectations, and team dynamics. Packard’s career demonstrates that success comes from blending different approaches, learning from experience, and maintaining a clear ethical framework. His mantra—legal, rewarding, and fun—captures the essence of sustainable leadership. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Jim Weisser — President and Co-founder, SignTime
04/10/2026
Jim Weisser — President and Co-founder, SignTime
“The team’s the most important thing.” “I didn’t listen very well.” “I thought I had most of the answers when I didn’t even know the problem.” “Treat them as they want to be treated.” “If I screwed up, it’s also my job to go to the team and say, ‘Hey, I screwed up and we’re going to change.’” Jim Weisser is President and co-founder of SignTime in Japan, a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and long-time participant in the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. He arrived in Japan in 1993 after studying chemical engineering and briefly working in a chemical plant, then began his career in the country as an English teacher in Yokohama before moving into computer consulting and internet infrastructure. During Japan’s early internet era he worked across multiple roles at an internet service provider, later joined Enron’s broadband business, and then built a consulting practice that led to the launch of PBXL, a hosted business telephony company that was eventually acquired in 2015 by a business that later became part of Cisco. After helping his team transition through that acquisition, he returned to entrepreneurship and co-founded SignTime, an electronic signature platform designed around Japanese workflows, including hanko culture, ringi-sho approval flows and practical adoption at the gemba. His career arc reflects unusual adaptability in Japan: from English teacher to technical operator, founder, exit entrepreneur, investor and software builder, with each stage sharpening his view that leadership in Japan depends less on forceful direction than on judgement, humility, consensus-building and patient execution. Jim Weisser’s leadership philosophy was not formed in a classroom. It was forged through a series of reinventions in Japan: from English teaching to internet infrastructure, from startup failure to acquisition, from operational leadership to SaaS product design. That lived range gives his perspective unusual credibility. He does not romanticise leadership, and he does not pretend he got it right the first time. In fact, one of the most striking themes in the interview is how bluntly he describes his early mistakes. He admitted that he did not listen well, overestimated the value of his own answers, and underestimated how much weight a leader’s words carry in a Japanese workplace. That self-awareness becomes the foundation of the larger lesson: effective leadership in Japan is not about becoming less decisive, but about becoming more inclusive, more deliberate and more accountable. His account of Japan pushes back against simplistic stereotypes. The country can look highly hierarchical from the outside, yet execution often depends on alignment far below the top. A president’s approval does not automatically move an idea into reality. Decisions are shaped through nemawashi, quiet pre-alignment, and through the practical logic of ringi-sho style circulation, where the proposal is stress-tested across functions before it becomes formal. For foreign executives, that can feel slow, indirect or even evasive. Weisser interprets it differently. He sees it as a system optimised for social durability and operational legitimacy. In that sense, what appears to be risk-aversion is often disciplined uncertainty management. Japanese organisations do not necessarily reject change; they reject poorly socialised change. That distinction matters because it reframes why global leaders struggle. Many arrive with a hero model of leadership: define the vision, make the call, push execution. Weisser has enough self-knowledge to recognise that he once behaved that way himself. Over time, however, he learned that command without context fails in Japan. Employees need room to interpret, absorb and support the direction. They also need psychological safety. In a defect-sensitive environment, even a mildly negative comment from the boss can be amplified. The leader who wants innovation must therefore reward initiative, model learning and publicly own mistakes. His example of apologising to a team member after sending an email in the wrong tone captures this beautifully. Accountability is not weakness; it is cultural permission for others to act. His current venture, SignTime, becomes a practical case study in decision intelligence and local design. Rather than forcing a Western e-signature model onto Japan, he and his team built around the lived realities of hanko, sequential approvals, gemba resistance, paper habits and contract storage needs. He also looks ahead: blockchain-based smart contracts, AI-generated contract summaries, reminder systems and digital twins of approval workflows all point to a future in which technology helps organisations make better decisions without violating the social logic of how work is actually done. For Weisser, the ultimate lesson is clear. Leadership in Japan is not about overpowering uncertainty. It is about reading it well, involving people early, translating vision into natural process, and having the humility to say, when necessary, that the leader was wrong and the team will adjust together. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is shaped by a paradox: it looks hierarchical, yet outcomes depend heavily on broad internal alignment. Weisser argues that senior approval alone rarely settles execution. Real progress comes through nemawashi, ringi-sho style circulation, and practical buy-in at the gemba. Leadership is therefore less about dramatic authority and more about socialising ideas until they feel workable, legitimate and low-friction across the organisation. Why do global executives struggle? Many global executives import a Western hero model into Japan. They expect clear top-down momentum once a senior sponsor agrees. Weisser warns that this approach often collides with the Japanese preference for consensus, face preservation and careful groundwork. Foreign leaders also underestimate how intensely a boss’s comments are felt. What sounds direct or efficient in one culture can feel damaging or unsafe in another. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Weisser does not see Japan as simply risk-averse. He sees a society that manages uncertainty carefully. The distinction is important. Japanese companies may resist abrupt change, but often because they want operational confidence, stakeholder alignment and social durability before moving. This is less about fear and more about uncertainty avoidance. In modern terms, it reflects a form of organisational decision intelligence: not refusing action, but wanting stronger proof, smoother process and wider consensus before committing. What leadership style actually works? The most effective leadership style in Japan combines clarity with humility. Leaders still need to set direction, but they must do so in ways that invite contribution and reduce resistance. Weisser’s own growth came from realising that he had to listen more, ask better questions and stop assuming he had the answer before fully understanding the problem. He now emphasises accountability, reflection and behavioural modelling. When leaders admit mistakes and adjust openly, they create permission for others to think, act and learn. How can technology help? Technology helps when it respects natural workflow rather than trying to bulldoze it. That insight sits at the core of SignTime. Instead of treating Japan as a delayed copy of Western markets, Weisser built around hanko habits, sequential approvals, gemba realities and repository needs. He also points to future possibilities including blockchain-based contracts, AI-generated business summaries, renewal reminders and digital twins of approval processes. These tools can reduce friction and improve visibility, but only if they support how people actually make decisions. Does language proficiency matter? Language matters, but not only in the narrow sense of vocabulary. What matters more is social fluency: understanding the pacing, implications and decision rituals behind what is being said. A leader may function with limited Japanese if they deeply grasp nemawashi, ringi-sho logic, face concerns and the emotional effect of authority. Conversely, fluency without cultural judgement can still fail. Weisser’s lesson is that leadership credibility in Japan comes from behavioural understanding as much as linguistic skill. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is that leadership is not about always being right. It is about building a team and a process that can keep moving when reality changes. Weisser repeatedly returns to the value of the team, the need to treat people as they want to be treated, and the importance of owning mistakes. In Japan especially, where subtle signals carry great weight, the leader’s humility becomes a strategic asset. It strengthens trust, supports innovation and makes consensus more than procedure; it makes it productive. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Wolfgang Angyal — President of Riedel Japan
04/03/2026
Wolfgang Angyal — President of Riedel Japan
“Trust is really the only currency that is the beginning and the end of pretty much every human relation.” “You give trust first, before you get trust.” “I want to make sure that the least empowered person in the room can have a great idea and the best idea will win.” “You need to be the fuel for their sparks.” “If you give them permission and you will never punish them for honesty.” Brief Bio Wolfgang Angyal is President of Riedel Japan and one of the rare foreign executives who has built a long leadership career in Japan from the ground up. Originally from Austria and trained in the hospitality industry, he first came to Japan in 1985 as part of Austria’s delegation to the Skill Olympics, where he won a gold medal in hotel and restaurant service. That early success left him with a strong affinity for Japan, shaped by childhood exposure to judo and an early fascination with Japanese values such as humility, respect and discipline. After returning to Japan in 1988 to teach at a hospitality school in Osaka, he experienced the kind of early cross-cultural mistakes that many foreign professionals make, later describing himself as an elephant in a porcelain shop. He then moved into sales, promotion and business development, first with Riedel’s importer in Japan, then within a large Japanese corporate distribution environment, and later across Asia-Pacific from Sydney, where he helped expand the brand into multiple markets. In 2000, he returned to Japan to establish Riedel’s wholly owned local operation, beginning with a JETRO rental office and one secretary. Over time, he built the business, integrated acquisitions, developed talent, and led Riedel Japan into one of the company’s most important markets. His career arc reflects adaptability, patient localisation, and a deep commitment to understanding how leadership actually works inside Japanese organisations. Wolfgang Angyal’s leadership story in Japan is not the story of a foreign executive arriving with a polished playbook. It is the opposite. His path began with technical excellence in hospitality, but his real advantage turned out not to be technique. It was trust. As a young Austrian competitor at the Skill Olympics in Japan, he noticed that while technically stronger rivals insisted on doing everything themselves, he relied on local assistants. That instinct to trust others, even across a language barrier, helped him win gold and gave him an early lesson that would later define his leadership philosophy in Japan. That insight deepened when he returned to Japan and made the classic mistakes of an outsider who does not yet understand the culture around him. Rather than romanticising those failures, he treats them as foundational. They taught him that leadership in Japan is rarely about force, status or personal brilliance. It is about reading context, slowing down, and building the kind of consistency that makes other people feel safe. In a culture shaped by consensus, nemawashi, ringi-sho thinking and strong uncertainty avoidance, the leader who moves too abruptly may get compliance on the surface but withdrawal underneath. His commercial career reinforced the same lesson. Selling Riedel in Japan was not straightforward. Wine culture was still emerging, homes were small, and the product category itself was unfamiliar. He had to educate the market experientially, often in Japanese, one relationship at a time. Later, when he worked inside a large Japanese corporate group, he discovered that change first had to be sold internally before it could be sold externally. That is a classic Japan lesson: before the market says yes, the organisation itself must align. Consensus is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is often the mechanism by which commitment becomes durable. When he eventually returned to launch Riedel Japan as a stand-alone operation, his challenge shifted from market development to leadership at scale. He had to recruit for an unknown foreign brand, absorb acquired teams, move from a family-sized company to a tribe-sized one, and learn to be comfortable being the boss. His language around this is strikingly unpretentious. He does not describe leadership as charisma. He describes it as getting comfortable with accountability while keeping the soft side of human connection intact. His most distinctive contribution is his view that leadership in Japan begins with trust given in advance. Rather than waiting for loyalty, he extends it first. He believes Japanese teams often respond strongly when trust is explicitly communicated, not merely assumed. From there, he builds predictability, psychological safety and honest feedback. He is willing to kill his own ideas publicly so better ideas can win, especially from less empowered people. That is not weakness. It is disciplined ego management. In a culture where employees may hesitate to speak up, the leader’s job is to create the conditions in which sparks appear. The ultimate task is not to be the source of every answer, but to become the fuel for other people’s ideas. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is uniquely shaped by context, hierarchy and the social mechanics of alignment. Decisions often emerge through nemawashi and ringi-sho processes rather than confrontation in the meeting room. For Angyal, this does not mean Japanese leadership is slow or passive. It means that trust, predictability and consensus are prerequisites for execution. Leaders who understand this see that commitment is built before the formal decision, not after it. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they arrive with technically correct ideas but insufficient cultural calibration. Angyal’s own early mistakes in Japan taught him that expertise alone is not enough. Many foreign leaders move too quickly, communicate too directly, or mistake silence for agreement. They underestimate how much uncertainty avoidance shapes behaviour and how strongly teams respond to tone, consistency and perceived safety. Without that understanding, even good initiatives fail to gain traction. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Angyal’s experience suggests that Japan is less risk-averse than uncertainty-averse. Teams do not necessarily reject innovation; they resist unframed ambiguity. Once the context is clear, the purpose is understood, and the interpersonal trust is in place, Japanese teams can be highly committed and creative. The issue is not whether change is possible. The issue is whether the path feels socially and operationally safe enough to pursue. Consensus reduces uncertainty, and that makes commitment possible. What leadership style actually works? The leadership style that works is calm, observant, explicit and human. Angyal emphasises getting to know people individually, understanding motivational drivers, adapting communication styles, and giving trust first. He also models intellectual humility by inviting criticism, using 360-degree feedback, and publicly dropping his own ideas when better ones emerge. In practice, this creates psychological safety and allows the least empowered person in the room to contribute. In Japan, that is often the difference between surface harmony and real engagement. How can technology help? Technology helps when it reduces uncertainty rather than adding complexity. In the Japanese context, decision intelligence matters more than digital theatre. Tools that clarify options, visualise outcomes, support structured feedback, and create shared visibility can reinforce consensus. In a modern setting, digital twins, workflow dashboards, collaboration platforms and feedback systems can support nemawashi by making implications easier to see before action is taken. Technology is useful when it strengthens alignment, not when it tries to bypass human trust. Does language proficiency matter? Language proficiency matters, but not in a simplistic way. Angyal learned enough Japanese to make appointments, build relationships and work inside complex Japanese organisations. That gave him access, credibility and nuance. Yet his deeper point is that language alone is not enough. A leader also has to understand how people see the foreign executive, what they expect, and what kind of value that outsider can bring. Speaking Japanese opens the door; understanding the human and organisational code keeps it open. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is that trust is the operative currency of leadership in Japan. Not abstract trust, but demonstrated trust. The leader must often pay it forward, communicate it explicitly, and protect honesty once it appears. That means being predictable, creating safety, following through, and resisting the ego impulse to dominate the room. Angyal’s leadership lesson is both simple and demanding: the leader’s role is not merely to direct, but to create the conditions in which others can contribute, challenge and grow.
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Lorenzo Scrimizzi — President, Carpigiani Japan
03/27/2026
Lorenzo Scrimizzi — President, Carpigiani Japan
“the most important thing, I mean in Japan, for business, is to hire the right people” “the keyword is gaining trust” “you need to allow people to make mistakes” “the personal relationship in Japan are extremely important” “learn the language” Lorenzo Scrimizzi is the President of Carpigiani Japan and an Italian executive whose career in Japan spans more than two decades across multiple industries. Originally trained as an engineer, he first arrived in Japan on a two-year assignment connected to precision equipment for the automotive sector. What began as a temporary posting evolved into a long-term career after he became captivated by Japan, changed jobs twice, married, and built his professional life in the country. After his first role in manufacturing, he moved into a startup focused on consumer accessories such as handbags and suitcases, then joined a trading company importing mainly organic food products from Italy. He credits that trading-company period with sharpening many of his core business skills. In 2002, he was recruited to lead Carpigiani Japan during a pivotal transition from joint venture to fully owned subsidiary. A native of Bologna, where Carpigiani is a well-known company, he stepped into the CEO role at a moment that required adaptability, cultural sensitivity, and resilience. His experience reflects a rare mix of technical training, commercial pragmatism, and long-term adjustment to Japanese business expectations. Lorenzo Scrimizzi’s view of leadership in Japan is grounded less in abstract theory than in lived experience. Over twenty-six years in the country, he has learned that success is rarely determined by strategy alone. It comes instead from earning trust, reading context accurately, and building organisations around people rather than forcing people into rigid structures. His story illustrates how foreign executives in Japan often arrive thinking they are managing a market, only to discover they are really managing relationships: with staff, customers, headquarters, and the culture itself. One of his strongest themes is recruitment. In Japan, he argues, leadership begins with hiring the right people, yet this is also one of the most difficult tasks. Foreign firms can be seduced by surface signals such as strong English ability, only to discover that language fluency does not always correlate with judgement, commitment, or execution. By contrast, some of the strongest contributors may speak little English but deeply understand the business and the customer. That insight leads to a broader principle: effective leadership in Japan requires looking beneath appearances and recognising substance. Scrimizzi is equally candid about the challenge of engagement. He sees relatively low engagement in Japan not as a simplistic character flaw, but as a structural and cultural issue shaped by education, hierarchy, and social expectations. Japanese employees often value pride in the company and belonging to a team more strongly than many Western executives realise. If that emotional connection is weak, engagement falls. For a foreign-owned company, this becomes even more important. People need not only job security but also a reason to identify with the organisation. His remarks on decision-making reveal a nuanced understanding of Japanese business practice. He does not portray Japan as irrationally conservative. Rather, he describes a system shaped by uncertainty avoidance, consensus, and the reluctance to step outside established boundaries. In practice, this resembles the wider logic of nemawashi and ringi-sho: before action comes alignment, and before initiative comes social permission. That can slow innovation, but it can also improve quality and internal cohesion when managed well. What stands out most is his belief that leaders must create safety for action. If people are punished for every mistake, they will neither innovate nor surface problems early. Allowing room for error, encouraging reporting, and keeping communication channels open are central to his management approach. In that sense, his leadership style combines consistency with flexibility. He believes in clear expectations, but also in adjusting roles to fit talent. In a small organisation, that agility becomes a competitive advantage. Ultimately, Scrimizzi presents leadership in Japan as an exercise in disciplined empathy. Language matters, but so do body language, observation, patience, and humility. The foreign executive who succeeds is neither the outsider who refuses to adapt nor the outsider who tries too hard to become Japanese. The one who succeeds is the one who remains authentic, respectful, and alert enough to understand what is really happening beneath the surface. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Scrimizzi sees leadership in Japan as fundamentally relational. Results depend on trust with employees, customers, and headquarters. Personal relationships carry unusual weight, and leadership cannot rely on formal authority alone. Consensus matters, and the process behind a decision can be just as important as the decision itself. In that respect, Japanese leadership environments are shaped by practices aligned with nemawashi and ringi-sho, where alignment is built carefully before action is taken. Why do global executives struggle? Many overseas leaders underestimate how much of Japan’s business logic is cultural rather than procedural. They may assume that a capable professional will naturally speak up, take initiative, or challenge assumptions. In Japan, however, hesitation can stem from education, hierarchy, and fear of blame rather than lack of ability. Global executives also misread recruitment, overvalue English ability, or fail to appreciate how much employees want to feel proud of the company they serve. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Scrimizzi suggests the issue is less risk than uncertainty. Japanese organisations often display strong uncertainty avoidance: people prefer structure, clarity, and social agreement before moving. Employees may avoid stepping outside the box because mistakes carry reputational consequences. The result is not a total absence of initiative, but a higher threshold for acting without consensus. Leaders who reduce fear and normalise learning from mistakes can unlock much more initiative than stereotypes suggest. What leadership style actually works? His preferred style is consistent, respectful, and flexible. Employees need to know what to expect from the leader, especially in difficult moments. At the same time, roles should sometimes be adjusted to fit individual strengths rather than forcing everyone into fixed boxes. He also places strong emphasis on informal relationship-building through meals, travel, conversation, and regular one-to-one contact. In Japan, credibility grows through repeated human contact, not only through policy. How can technology help? Technology can support communication and visibility, especially when teams are dispersed, but Scrimizzi is careful not to overstate it. Reporting systems, regular meetings, and structured information flow help prevent problems from being hidden. In a modern context, this could expand into stronger decision intelligence, shared dashboards, and even digital twins of operations that make emerging issues visible earlier. Yet he implies that tools only work when people trust the environment enough to speak honestly. Does language proficiency matter? He considers language essential. Learning Japanese is not just about vocabulary; it is about understanding mentality, nuance, and the unspoken layers of communication. He also stresses body language. Japanese counterparts do not always state their true feelings directly, so leaders must read expressions, hesitation, and tone. Language proficiency therefore becomes a strategic advantage because it sharpens judgement and deepens cultural understanding. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The core lesson is that trust is the true operating system of leadership in Japan. Trust with customers, trust with staff, and trust with headquarters all need to be cultivated deliberately. The leader must stay curious, remain humble, and keep learning. Even after decades in Japan, Scrimizzi believes surprise is part of the job. That mindset of continuous learning may be the most important leadership capability of all. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Bob Noddin — Previous CEO of AIG Japan
03/22/2026
Bob Noddin — Previous CEO of AIG Japan
“Japan is different and hard.” “It’s consistency, it’s sustainability of the vision and the theme that’s going to matter.” “You couldn’t be the super-God sits up in the ivory tower.” “Leadership is about inspiring people to go somewhere that they wouldn’t necessarily go on their own.” “Respect the history and the culture that is Japan.” Brief Bio Bob Noddin is the CEO of AIG Japan and a long-time Asia business leader whose career reflects deep adaptability across cultures, industries, and operating environments. His connection with Japan began in 1982 as a college exchange student at Kansai Gaidai in Osaka, where early exposure to Japanese psychology, history, language, and society gave him an unusually strong foundation for later leadership in the country. After returning to the United States, he joined Citibank with ambitions for an international career, but when a planned transfer to Japan fell through, he moved to AIG instead — a decision that shaped the next three and a half decades of his professional life. His AIG career took him across Asia on a series of increasingly complex assignments. What began as a short-term posting evolved into leadership roles in the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan, giving him broad exposure to different operating cultures while sharpening his ability to lead through ambiguity, restructuring, and growth. He later returned to the United States as Global Head of Operations and Technology for AIG’s property casualty business, overseeing a vast international footprint before asking to return to Asia during the financial crisis. Back in Japan, he took on major leadership responsibilities during a period of merger integration, organisational reform, and national crisis, eventually leading one of the company’s most important markets worldwide. Across that journey, he developed a leadership philosophy grounded in visibility, trust, resilience, and the need to adapt global expectations to Japan’s distinctive business culture. Bob Noddin’s leadership story in Japan is not one of a parachuted-in foreign executive trying to impose a template from head office. It is the story of a leader who spent decades earning the right to run one of the most complex roles in AIG’s global portfolio, while learning that Japan rewards patience, consistency, and human connection far more than slogans or imported management theory. His perspective is shaped by a rare combination of early academic immersion in Japan, long operational experience across Asia, and direct accountability for large-scale businesses in crisis, integration, and transformation. What stands out most in his account is the distinction he draws between knowing that Japan is different and actually leading effectively inside that difference. He describes a country and corporate environment shaped by structure, seniority, collaboration, and extremely high standards of quality. Those strengths helped build modern Japan, but they can also create friction when an organisation needs speed, innovation, or bold change. In that context, the challenge is not simply strategic clarity. It is how to move a system conditioned by nenko-style seniority, uncertainty avoidance, and deeply embedded consensus habits without triggering organisational antibodies. Noddin identifies the real obstacle not as frontline employees, but as what he calls the “thermal layer” of middle management. This layer absorbs direction from above, filters it, softens it, delays it, and often protects the existing culture from disruption. In Japan, where seniority and harmony remain powerful forces, this buffering function can become a major drag on change. His response was not dramatic confrontation, but patient cultural triage: identify the people already leaning towards a more proactive leadership style, invest in those who could develop into that style, and separate them from those who were simply dead wood or actively cancerous to progress. His approach to change is strikingly practical. He introduced role-play into management development, studied how Japanese executives in other industries handled transformation, and used visible examples to normalise reflection, experimentation, and ownership. He also changed recruitment, insisting that professional-track hires speak at least one additional language, not because English alone mattered, but because exposure to another language and culture expands thinking. That decision reflects a core belief running through the interview: that leadership in Japan requires widening mental models, not merely importing foreign practices. Technology and innovation appear in his thinking not as abstractions but as tools that must be paired with psychological safety. People will not propose better systems, digital improvements, or new customer models unless they believe failure will not destroy them. In a culture where a mistake can carry a disproportionate social cost, he made a point of publicly taking responsibility when experiments did not work and praising courage even when outcomes fell short. That is a subtle but powerful form of decision intelligence: separating the quality of a decision from the certainty of an outcome. Perhaps the strongest theme in Noddin’s interview is that trust in Japan is built through presence. He argues that leaders cannot sit in an ivory tower. They need to be visible, approachable, and unmistakably human. That means town halls, travel, direct emails, birthday cakes, karaoke, drinks with staff, and honest conversations with agents and employees alike. In Japan, where formal roles can conceal strong emotion, trust is not built through authority alone. It is built when people feel the leader can be touched, tested, and believed. For Noddin, the ultimate lesson is clear: respect Japan’s history, stay resilient when the ivy-covered brick wall appears, and focus relentlessly on shared objectives rather than issuing instructions that produce compliance without ownership. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Bob Noddin sees leadership in Japan as uniquely shaped by history, structure, and social expectations. He points to a business environment that values seniority, teamwork, incremental improvement, and order. These are not superficial preferences but expressions of deeper cultural patterns that emerged from national rebuilding and collective effort. Concepts such as nemawashi, consensus, and uncertainty avoidance remain highly relevant because organisations often prefer broad alignment and risk containment over speed or individual heroics. What makes Japan distinctive is that these qualities can be both strengths and constraints. They support quality, discipline, and reliability, but they also create resistance when a leader is trying to drive innovation or break with tradition. The foreign executive who mistakes Japan’s politeness for easy agreement is likely to fail. Leadership here requires reading the context beneath the formal surface and understanding that the visible meeting is often only one part of the real decision process. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they underestimate how much translation is required between headquarters expectations and Japanese reality. Noddin says head office may intellectually understand that Japan is different, but repeated explanations eventually sound like excuses unless the local leader can convert that difference into results. Executives sent to Japan for short rotations can also become trapped by a buffering layer of local management that protects the system from meaningful change. He argues that many foreign leaders fail because they arrive with urgency but without enough seasoning, continuity, or local credibility. Japan is not a market that can be reset in three years through force of personality. It requires sustained presence, consistency of message, and a willingness to stay long enough for people to believe the leader is not simply passing through. Without that, local teams wait out the foreign boss and preserve the old logic underneath. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Noddin believes Japan is not simply risk-averse in a crude sense. It is better understood as highly sensitive to the consequences of failure. In a system where there is perceived to be one right way to proceed, shaped by education, hierarchy, and social accountability, the downside of getting something wrong is far greater than the upside of trying something new. That makes people cautious, especially if they fear isolation or reputational damage for standing out. His answer is not to lecture people about risk-taking, but to separate risk from recklessness. In practical terms, that means showing people that thoughtful experimentation will be supported, that leaders will absorb the blame when outcomes fall short, and that lessons learned matter. In this sense, better leadership creates better risk literacy. It helps employees distinguish manageable uncertainty from unacceptable exposure. What leadership style actually works? The style that works, in his view, is visible, human, and resilient. He rejects the distant, untouchable executive model. Leaders in Japan need to be accessible, to travel, to engage directly, and to demonstrate humility. Trust grows when employees see the leader as a real person rather than a remote authority figure. That human connection becomes especially important in a culture where emotions are often controlled in formal settings but remain powerful underneath. At the same time, effective leadership is not about giving detailed instructions. Noddin draws a clear line between management and leadership. Management allocates tasks; leadership inspires people to go somewhere they would not necessarily choose on their own. The most effective leader in Japan aligns people around an objective, tests understanding from multiple stakeholder viewpoints, and then gives teams ownership over how to deliver. How can technology help? Technology helps when it supports better ways of working rather than simply automating existing silos. Noddin’s examples show that innovation in Japan needs a protected environment. His venture-style internal project, which pulled people out of the normal structure and allowed different work patterns, dress codes, and idea development cycles, created space for creativity that the regular organisation would have smothered. In a modern sense, this is close to building a digital twin of the operating culture: a parallel environment where new behaviours can be tested before wider deployment. Technology also becomes powerful when combined with decision intelligence. Data, systems, and new processes are useful only if people feel safe enough to question assumptions, propose improvements, and learn from imperfect launches. Without that cultural layer, digital transformation becomes cosmetic. Does language proficiency matter? Yes, but not in the narrow sense of passing language tests. Noddin values language because it signals cultural exposure and cognitive flexibility. His recruiting shift towards candidates fluent in another language was really a shift towards people who had lived beyond a single worldview. In a global company operating in Japan, that broader perspective is essential. He also suggests that language matters because it reveals how people have been trained to think. His example of learning kanji stroke order captures a larger point: if people are educated that there is one correct sequence and one correct form, then innovation at work becomes psychologically difficult. Language learning, cultural immersion, and broader experience help leaders appreciate that mental model and work with it more intelligently. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is to respect Japan deeply while refusing to be defeated by its inertia. Noddin advises new leaders to honour the country’s history, social cohesion, and achievements rather than dismissing them. At the same time, they must stay resilient, because they will encounter hidden resistance, delays, and beautiful ivy covering solid brick walls. His final message is that leadership in Japan succeeds when it combines respect with resolve. Leaders need to focus on the objective, not just the task list; build trust through presence; and create systems where people own outcomes rather than merely comply with instructions. That is how change becomes durable rather than cosmetic. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Mike Alfant - CEO Fushion Systems
03/13/2026
Mike Alfant - CEO Fushion Systems
“Everyone wants to play for a winning team.” “You’ve got to go to war with the army you’ve got, not the army you wish you had.” “In Japan, talk is cheap. Nobody really pays attention to what people say. They pay attention to what people do.” “My philosophy is every employee should be a shareholder in the firm.” “This is a marathon, not a sprint.” Mike Alfant is the CEO of Fusion Systems and one of the more established foreign founders in Japan’s technology sector. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he studied computer science and spent roughly a decade on Wall Street in technology roles before being sent to Japan by Security Pacific during the late-1980s bubble era. What began as a short assignment became dozens of return trips, a permanent move to Tokyo, and eventually the launch of his first company, Fusion Systems, in 1992. That original firm built software for trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, grew without outside capital, and was sold in 1999, creating meaningful upside for management and employees alike. Bound by a five-year non-compete in fintech, he broadened his experience by launching or backing businesses across Japan, mainland China, Hong Kong, Australia, and the United States. Over three decades in Japan, he has built a reputation for adaptability, entrepreneurial stamina, and community leadership, including senior roles in major business and civic organisations. His career reflects an ability to adjust to Japan without pretending to become Japanese, while still creating organisations that local employees, partners, and clients can trust. Mike Alfant’s leadership story in Japan is not a neat theory assembled in a boardroom. It is a long, practical exercise in adaptation, stamina, and self-awareness. Arriving from New York with a strong technical background and Wall Street experience, he initially assumed that good ideas, hard work, and energy would be enough. Japan quickly showed him otherwise. In the early 1990s, a foreign entrepreneur trying to recruit Japanese staff into a start-up during an economic downturn faced not only market scepticism, but deep social uncertainty. The challenge was not merely business risk. It was uncertainty avoidance at a human level: employees and their families were being asked to leave established structures for an unknown future led by a non-Japanese founder. What changed the trajectory was not a dramatic reinvention, but a gradual sharpening of judgment. Alfant learned that leadership in Japan depends less on verbal persuasion and more on visible consistency. In his framing, people watch what leaders do, not what they say. That makes credibility cumulative. Every hiring choice, every response under pressure, every act of fairness or impatience becomes part of the operating environment. In a culture shaped by consensus, nemawashi, and the quiet influence that often precedes formal ringi-sho approval, trust is built through behavioural reliability rather than rhetoric. He also learned that the motivation architecture inside a Japanese organisation differs from what many Western executives expect. In New York, he had been used to obvious competition for promotion and reward. In Japan, that ambition was less overt. Rather than complain about the team he wished he had, he built with the team he had, combining mission-driven foreign hires with process-oriented Japanese professionals. That hybrid became a practical leadership model: articulate the destination, build a process strong enough to support execution, and keep moving. Perhaps the most distinctive element in his philosophy is ownership. Alfant believes employees should share in enterprise value. He deliberately dilutes himself over time, not out of sentimentality, but because aligned commercial upside creates seriousness, loyalty, and repeat relationships. He wants people to feel they are not simply working for a founder, but for themselves, their colleagues, and their clients. That belief sits alongside a realistic understanding that founders must still protect the company through governance, repurchase rights, and disciplined hiring. He is equally clear that ideas alone are overrated. Customers, not internal brainstorming theatre, are the most reliable source of innovation. Leadership therefore becomes less about performance and more about disciplined listening, decision intelligence, and execution. Technology matters, but only when it solves a real client problem. Digital twins, process visibility, workflow systems, and other tools can sharpen organisational judgment, but they do not replace it. In that sense, Alfant’s Japan story is not about becoming local in a superficial way. It is about staying authentic, respecting Japanese business culture, and committing to the long game with enough resilience to earn trust over time. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan stands apart because legitimacy is earned through conduct more than declaration. Alfant’s experience suggests that Japanese teams respond less to grand speeches and more to behavioural consistency, visible effort, and emotional steadiness. A leader is observed constantly, and small signals matter. This fits a business environment where consensus carries weight, nemawashi often precedes formal action, and a ringi-sho process may crystallise agreement only after extensive informal alignment. For outsiders, the key difference is that leadership authority must be demonstrated repeatedly in practice. Why do global executives struggle? Many global executives struggle because they arrive with urgency, scale, and proven credentials, but underestimate how different Japan is in rhythm and expectation. They may assume that logic alone should win support, or that a direct transplant of their home-market methods will work. Alfant argues that frustration is often self-inflicted. Japan is not going to change for the foreign executive. Leaders who spread themselves across too many initiatives, expect immediate traction, or interpret caution as lack of ability usually end up with half-finished agendas. The struggle is less about competence than about impatience and misreading context. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Alfant’s account points to a more useful distinction between risk and uncertainty. Japan can appear risk-averse, but what leaders often encounter is a structured response to uncertainty. Employees, families, boards, and clients all want to understand whether a new path is credible, stable, and fair. Once that credibility is established, people can be remarkably committed. His early recruiting experience showed that joining a foreign-led start-up in the 1990s felt socially and professionally uncertain. Later, once Fusion looked like a winning team, referrals and retention became easier. The issue was not fear of effort. It was the need for trust before commitment. What leadership style actually works? The leadership style that works is neither purely charismatic nor purely procedural. Alfant found success in a hybrid model. He supplied direction, energy, and mission clarity, while building a strong enough process for Japanese teams to execute with confidence. In other words, heroic leadership by itself is insufficient, but so is technocratic distance. Leaders in Japan need to show up, stay visible, and make decisions, while also creating structure, predictability, and room for careful execution. They must listen more than they speak, avoid defensiveness, and resist the temptation to dominate every interaction. How can technology help? Technology helps when it sharpens execution rather than becoming a substitute for judgment. Alfant’s view is notably practical: customers reveal what is worth building. That mindset fits modern tools such as decision intelligence, workflow analytics, digital twins for operational modelling, and other systems that let firms test process changes before imposing them on clients or teams. Yet his underlying point remains simple. Technology is valuable only when tied to a genuine market need. Internal idea generation without commercial discipline produces noise. Listening carefully to customers, then using technology to solve what they will actually pay for, is the more durable path. Does language proficiency matter? Language matters, but not in the simplistic sense that fluency alone unlocks leadership. Alfant warns foreigners against trying to become Japanese. Their value lies partly in being outsiders who bring a different perspective. What matters more is respect: understanding manners, business customs, and the subtleties of communication, while remaining authentic. Leaders who chase surface imitation often become awkward or ineffective. Leaders who understand context, show humility, and communicate clearly can succeed even without perfect Japanese. In that sense, cultural literacy, listening skill, and consistency matter more than performative fluency. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is that Japan rewards endurance, self-knowledge, and authenticity. Alfant repeatedly returns to the idea that leadership is a marathon, not a sprint. Foreign executives need thick skin, narrow priorities, personal discipline, and the humility to learn from every interaction. They also need the confidence not to overreact when progress feels slow. Leadership in Japan is not about forcing change through personality alone. It is about building trust patiently, aligning interests honestly, and creating an environment where people want to join, stay, and win together. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Peter Jennings - Previous President of Dow Japan and Korea
03/07/2026
Peter Jennings - Previous President of Dow Japan and Korea
“this job is really primarily a people job” “if you get the right people, you don’t have to spend a lot of time micromanaging; get out of their way and let them do their thing” “you have to be the type of boss that people are not afraid to bring bad news” “you all have everything you need to be successful at Dow” “if you treat Japanese people with integrity, trust, respect, like you would want to be treated like anywhere else in the world, you’re going to be fine” Brief Bio Peter Jennings is President of Dow in Japan and Korea, overseeing a multi-billion-dollar business and thousands of employees across both markets. He joined Dow as an attorney and spent twenty-seven years in legal roles before being unexpectedly tapped for senior business leadership. Before moving to Japan in 2012, he served in Hong Kong as general counsel for Dow Asia Pacific and later returned to the United States for several senior assignments. His transition from legal counsel to country president reflects a career shaped by adaptability, deep institutional knowledge, and a strong people-first philosophy. In Japan, he became Dow’s longest-serving president in the market’s history, leading cultural renewal, leadership development, diversity initiatives, and a more open, internationally minded operating model inside a long-established Japanese organisation. Peter Jennings presents a compelling case that leadership success in Japan does not begin with technical mastery, perfect language, or rigid adherence to stereotype. It begins with trust. When he arrived in Japan in 2012, one year after the Tohoku earthquake, he came not as a traditional commercial operator but as a long-serving Dow lawyer with deep corporate knowledge and international experience. That unusual path could easily have created distance between him and a highly experienced Japanese leadership team. Instead, it became an advantage because he did not arrive pretending to know everything. He arrived listening. His early approach was simple and disciplined. He met leaders individually, asked about their biggest issues, wrote everything down, and focused on how he could help. In a market where nemawashi, ringi-sho, consensus-building, and careful internal alignment still shape decision-making, that restraint mattered. Rather than impose a foreign leadership template, Jennings worked to understand how trust and respect are earned locally. He recognised that formal authority in Japan means little unless people feel safe enough to speak candidly. Over time, the proof of progress was behavioural. Senior staff started challenging him privately after meetings. Employees began dropping by for coffee or lunch. More importantly, people brought bad news earlier. For Jennings, that was a decisive signal of culture change. He argues that if people fear punishment, information gets buried. In a high uncertainty avoidance environment, leaders must reduce the interpersonal risk of honesty before they can improve decision quality. That is where leadership and decision intelligence meet: better outcomes come from better information flow, not louder authority. He also reshaped the leadership bench. Over several years, Dow Japan moved from a more traditional senior male model towards a younger, more diverse, bilingual, bicultural team. Jennings takes particular satisfaction not in personal advancement but in seeing talented people, especially women, promoted into larger roles. He frames leadership as removing obstacles, securing resources, and backing capable people rather than controlling them. That is a significant shift away from hierarchical supervision and towards empowerment. Another major insight concerns engagement. Rather than accept low survey scores as a fixed Japan problem, Jennings replaced abstract annual questionnaires with thirty small-group focus sessions built around four direct questions. This surfaced practical barriers that a standardised survey missed. In effect, he moved from broad sentiment tracking to grounded organisational sensing. That approach resembles a more human version of modern management tools such as digital twins or data-led diagnostic systems: the aim is not data volume, but usable insight. Jennings remains optimistic about Japan’s future because he sees a new generation less constrained by inherited conventions. He believes many younger professionals want accelerated careers, global exposure, flexibility, and merit-based opportunity. His lesson is clear: leadership in Japan works best when it combines respect for consensus with encouragement for initiative, local sensitivity with global openness, and humility with conviction. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is shaped by context more than cliché. Jennings suggests the distinctive challenge is not that Japanese teams are uniquely difficult, but that trust must be earned carefully and consistently. Consensus matters, and leaders must respect the logic behind nemawashi and ringi-sho rather than dismiss them as slow. People observe behaviour closely before deciding whether a leader is safe, credible, and worth following. Titles alone do not create followership. In practice, leadership in Japan requires patience, consistency, and a visible commitment to fairness. Why do global executives struggle? Many global executives struggle because they arrive overconfident or over-programmed. Jennings argues that outsiders often assume prior Asia experience transfers automatically into Japan. It does not. Japan requires a different cadence, especially around rapport, internal alignment, and decision support. Executives also fail when they underestimate how long trust-building takes. Jennings says it took two to three years before he felt his influence had truly taken root. Leaders who expect quick wins often misread silence as agreement and hierarchy as commitment. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Jennings does not deny caution exists, but he reframes the issue as uncertainty rather than simple risk aversion. In environments with strong uncertainty avoidance, employees can hesitate because the social cost of error feels high. That does not mean they lack ambition or imagination. It means leadership must lower the penalty for speaking up, experimenting, and surfacing problems. When employees believe bad news will be handled constructively, innovation becomes more possible. The issue is less about national character and more about psychological safety. What leadership style actually works? The style that works is people-centred, transparent, and supportive. Jennings repeatedly returns to one principle: leadership is a people job. He believes leaders should ask good questions, listen well, help teams secure resources, and avoid micromanagement. They should also model openness by welcoming challenge and by rewarding honesty instead of punishing it. This style aligns well with consensus cultures because it does not destroy harmony; it strengthens it through trust. Effective leaders also create points of light by visibly backing talented people into bigger roles. How can technology help? Technology can support leadership, but it cannot replace human judgment. Jennings’ critique of standard engagement surveys shows that data without context often misleads. Better systems should improve signal quality, not merely produce dashboards. In that sense, tools associated with decision intelligence, workforce analytics, or even digital twins of organisational processes can help leaders identify bottlenecks, bias, and friction. Yet Jennings’ own example shows the real breakthrough came from direct conversation. Technology is most useful when it sharpens listening rather than substitutes for it. Does language proficiency matter? Language proficiency helps, but Jennings suggests it is not decisive. He openly acknowledges not speaking Japanese, yet built credibility through authenticity, gratitude, and respectful conduct. He believes leaders can succeed without perfect language if they behave with integrity, remain accessible, and work through strong local talent. Language matters less than whether people believe the leader is genuine, fair, and willing to learn. Cultural arrogance is far more damaging than imperfect fluency. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is that people rise when leaders combine belief with opportunity. Jennings insists that employees already possess the education and ability to succeed; what often separates performance is confidence, encouragement, and the chance to act. Great leadership in Japan is therefore not about overpowering culture but about unlocking potential within it. When leaders blend respect, transparency, empowerment, and resilience, they create an organisation where people are willing to speak, grow, and lead. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Ross Rowbury - Previous President, Edelman Japan
02/27/2026
Ross Rowbury - Previous President, Edelman Japan
“The key thing is that the leader needs to be able to identify where those turning points or tipping points are so that they don't become a bottleneck in that process.” “In most cases, I feel like I only have about 30% of the necessary information to make me comfortable to make that decision.” “Consensus in a Japanese sense is that a little bit of everyone's idea is taken and included in the final solution so that everyone feels that they've been part of the final solution.” “If you want to be successful in business in Japan… it’s patience, persistence, and politeness.” “In Japan you can do anything. It's just that it will end up taking twice as much time and ended up costing you twice as much money.” Brief Bio Ross Rowbury was President of Edelman Japan, a leading local business through a decade of rapid growth from roughly 20 people to more than 80, making it one of the largest foreign PR operations in the market. He first arrived in Japan as a Rotary exchange student in high school and later returned after university to build his career across banking and securities, spending around nine years at a major Japanese broker before moving to foreign brokerages. After a short attempt at entrepreneurship, he shifted into the communications industry by leveraging his finance background in financial PR, eventually moving into senior leadership and today running the Japan business of Edelman, one of the world’s largest PR firms. Ross Rowbury’s leadership story in Japan is shaped by longevity, humility, and a practical acceptance that “certainty” is often a luxury leaders do not get. Having first come to Japan as a teenage exchange student and later returning to start his professional life in finance, he learned early that competence alone does not automatically translate into followership in a Japanese workplace. His first major leadership role arrived in his early thirties, when he was tasked with turning around a loss-making department. The performance goal was simple—make it profitable—but the cultural context was not. Every team member was at least a decade older, and the age hierarchy that can silently govern influence and legitimacy became a daily force. Resistance was not only about ideas; it was about identity, pride, and perceived loss of face. The experience produced intense stress, yet it also forged an enduring lesson: authority must be earned through results, relationships, and an ability to read the room—what many describe as kuuki. His move into PR introduced a different leadership terrain. Unlike finance, where outcomes can feel “black and white,” consulting work is creative, negotiated, and relational. Rowbury found it easier to lead by showing value through client work and solutions, particularly as experience and seniority reduced the friction of hierarchy. As Edelman Japan grew, his leadership challenge shifted again—from personal execution to organisational design. He describes the organisation as a living thing whose needs change over time, and he highlights a classic scaling trap: the leader becomes the bottleneck. In early growth, he joined every pitch; later, he stepped back to create space for others. The transition hurt—losing 15 pitches in a row tested resolve—but it ultimately built a stronger, more independent team. Rowbury’s current phase is defined by complexity: the industry’s digital disruption, the need to hire specialists from different backgrounds, and the cultural integration required when “the same words can mean very different things.” Even simple labels—like “project manager”—carry multiple definitions depending on whether someone comes from PR, advertising, or operations. In that environment, leadership becomes a translation exercise: aligning language, expectations, and pace, while creating a shared operating system that preserves commercial standards. His approach leans on repeated “fierce conversations,” explicit apology when he missteps, and a deliberate embrace of diversity in working styles. Across generations, he observes that expertise no longer belongs to tenure alone. Digital channels can invert authority, as younger team members may see the modern pathway to attention and amplification more clearly than traditional leaders. That reality raises the bar on transparency and trust. Employees want to understand why decisions are made, and they want to participate—pressures that pull Western-led organisations toward Japanese-style inclusion, closer to nemawashi and ringi-sho thinking, even when speed still matters. Ultimately, Rowbury frames leadership in Japan as patience with ambiguity, persistence without aggression, and politeness that protects relationships—paired with the courage to make decisions with incomplete information and to keep learning, even after decades in the country. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Rowbury highlights that leadership legitimacy in Japan is often influenced by unspoken social structures—particularly age hierarchy and the atmospherics of kuuki. Early in his leadership journey, being significantly younger than his team triggered resistance that was less about competence and more about perceived status and face. He also distinguishes Japanese “consensus” from a Western interpretation: rather than persuading everyone to choose option three, Japanese consensus often blends elements of multiple views so people feel represented. That approach resembles nemawashi in practice—broad, pre-aligned input gathering—and can be operationalised through ringi-sho style circulation, but it demands time and careful social calibration. Why do global executives struggle? He argues that many executives arrive expecting clarity and control, yet Japan operates in “funny grey” where the boundaries between yes and no can be contextual. Managers used to speed may become frustrated by the slower cadence of alignment and the additional cost of coordination. Rowbury’s rule of thumb is blunt: in Japan, almost anything is possible, but it often takes twice the time and twice the money. The executives who struggle most are those who interpret delay as incompetence, rather than as a different system of risk management, quality, and relational assurance. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Rowbury reframes the question as one of uncertainty avoidance. In his view, Japan is not incapable of bold outcomes, but it seeks to reduce ambiguity before acting—often through broader consultation and incremental commitment. He also cautions against simplistic “mistakes are welcome” messaging in a hyper-connected media environment where a small error can cascade into reputational harm. The practical stance becomes bounded experimentation: encourage small, controlled risks that improve process and creativity, while drawing bright lines around compliance, client reputation, and legal exposure. What leadership style actually works? His answer combines consistency with adaptability. Leaders should not chase universal approval; they should maintain a coherent decision logic, communicate it repeatedly, and then adjust quickly when reality proves them wrong. He emphasises the importance of not becoming a bottleneck as organisations scale—delegation is both a growth strategy and a trust-building signal. He also recommends linguistic and cultural framing: avoid phrases that trigger fear (“that’s your responsibility”) and choose language that invites ownership (“I’ll leave it up to you”). In practice, the effective style blends Western decisiveness with Japanese inclusion—decision intelligence over impulse, and structured consultation over vague agreement. How can technology help? Rowbury points to digital disruption as the central driver of change in communications. Attention is scarce, narratives must land in seconds, and amplification requires integrated planning across social, events, and media. Technology can support leaders by creating clearer information flows as organisations grow—reducing the gap between what the leader needs internally and what the market demands externally. He also describes using AI-enabled engagement surveys to detect patterns and prioritise action. In a more advanced framing, leaders can borrow from decision intelligence concepts—dashboards, scenario planning, and even “digital twin” thinking for organisations—to test operational changes (like remote work and wellness policies) before scaling them. Does language proficiency matter? Rowbury suggests that success is less about perfect fluency and more about disciplined communication and cultural translation—understanding how the same words can mean different things across industries and backgrounds. The key is building a shared language inside the organisation, clarifying definitions, and repeating messages through multiple channels until they stick. That repetition is not redundancy; it is trust-building in a skeptical environment. Leaders who listen carefully, consult respectfully, and communicate consistently can bridge gaps even when language skills are not flawless. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? His core lesson is that leadership is continuous learning under conditions of imperfect information. He describes decision-making comfort as rare—leaders may only have 20–30% of what they wish they knew, yet they must still decide. The discipline is to keep moving, remain curious, and recover quickly from missteps. For newcomers to Japan, he distils it into the “three Ps”: patience, persistence, and politeness. In the long run, that mindset—paired with humility about culture, respect for the grey, and a commitment to keep learning—defines sustainable leadership in Japan. Timecoded Summary Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Paul Hardisty - Former CEO, Adidas Japan
02/21/2026
Paul Hardisty - Former CEO, Adidas Japan
“The trust part is very important.” “Change was a dirty word.” “Anything controversial was normally me.” “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.” Paul Hardisty is a finance-trained executive (CPA) who began his career in Melbourne and became CFO of a group of fashion brands across Australia and New Zealand, including Davenport, with licensing and distribution experience across brands such as Calvin Klein and Carhartt. In 1999, he joined adidas, initially slated for Indonesia just as Jakarta’s riots erupted, before ultimately leading adidas Indonesia for five years. He then spent six months in India addressing corruption issues, before moving to South Korea for more than six years, scaling the business significantly. Hardisty’s long-held ambition was Japan, and he relocated with his family to lead adidas Japan, where he spent around a decade and helped drive major growth. His career arc reflects repeated adaptation across markets, cultures, and organisational scale, culminating in leading one of adidas’s most sophisticated and strategically scrutinised country operations. Paul Hardisty’s leadership story is a study in scale, trust, and the mechanics of change inside a complex, matrixed multinational. Having built a finance foundation in Australia and then taken on consecutive country leadership roles across Indonesia and South Korea, he arrived in Japan with a reputation for delivery and a clear-eyed sense that every market has its own “bucket of challenges”. Japan’s challenge was not drama; it was magnitude. The jump in organisational size, headcount, and global attention required him to rethink how a leader stays close to the business without drowning in it. Hardisty’s early focus was listening: diagnosing issues, filling structural gaps, and building a strategy that could plug into global direction without losing local relevance. He frames trust as the non-negotiable foundation — not uniquely Japanese, but especially powerful in Japan when earned through consistency and “walking the talk”. This trust, once established, becomes the lubricant for cross-functional cooperation and the antidote to silent compliance. He is candid about engagement measurement and how it can mislead headquarters. Rather than treating scores as a simplistic international comparison, he focused on patterns, feedback, and the real operational drivers behind sentiment — restructures, headcount freezes, and incentives. His most controversial move was transparency: explaining the scoring system, challenging extremely low scorers to reconsider fit, and even enabling anonymous external applications. The point was not punitive; it was cultural clarity — engagement matters, but so does the integrity of the team environment. Hardisty also leaned into pride as a motivational engine. In sport, brand affiliation and national moments (such as major tournaments) can transform “company” into “identity”. He institutionalised that energy through internal competitions, event tickets, surprise guests, and subsidised sports clubs, making motivation tangible and social. Where his approach becomes especially instructive is in diversity and global mobility. He resisted the idea that Japan must be led only by Japanese, or that Japanese leaders must stay in Japan. By placing non-Japanese local hires throughout the organisation and building pathways for Japanese talent to take overseas roles (including shorter three-month rotations), he pushed the company beyond passive consensus into practical internationalisation — a form of organisational nemawashi performed through staffing architecture rather than meeting-room persuasion. On innovation, he names the core friction: uncertainty avoidance and the comfort of repeating proven routines. To counter that, he used incentives, anonymity, and then a structural breakthrough — a business development function reporting directly to him, acting as an internal project-management and strategy engine. It reduced “not my job” resistance, spread ownership, and accelerated decision flow in a ringi-sho world where approvals can slow momentum. Ultimately, Hardisty’s Japan lesson is not that Japan is “impossible”. It is that Japan rewards leaders who operationalise trust, make change safe to attempt, and build systems that carry strategy through the middle layers to the front line. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Hardisty sees Japan as different in flavour, not in degree. The distinguishing feature is the strength of trust and loyalty once credibility is earned. In a consensus environment shaped by nemawashi and ringi-sho processes, alignment is powerful, but it must be cultivated deliberately and communicated repeatedly at scale. Why do global executives struggle? He argues many leaders struggle because they over-index on stereotypes and get “brainwashed” by received wisdom — what cannot be done, what must be done, and why Japan is supposedly exceptional. That mindset can cause unnecessary caution, poor decisions, and a failure to see the “bucket load of good things” that make Japan workable and rewarding. Is Japan truly risk-averse? He frames the issue less as risk and more as uncertainty avoidance. People protect reputation by staying within proven patterns, which can look like risk aversion. His antidote is to reframe experimentation as responsible learning, supported by incentives, clear ownership, and leadership cover when outcomes are not perfect. What leadership style actually works? His style is direct, transparent, and human. He uses openness to build trust, shares personal context to reduce distance, and creates forums where information flows both ways. He is also willing to be “controversial” when cultural drift undermines performance or engagement. How can technology help? While he does not position Japan as a technology problem, his operating model maps well to decision intelligence: creating a central function that gathers intel, runs meetings, manages projects, and accelerates cross-functional execution. In modern terms, leaders can use analytics, scenario planning, and even digital twins of the business to test change before rollout, reducing perceived uncertainty and speeding consensus without bypassing it. Does language proficiency matter? He acknowledges language as a major early hurdle and treats capability-building as an investment. Translation support, English training, and mixed-nationality teams can slow meetings, but they also expand opportunity and shift mindsets. Language is not only communication; it is a gateway to global mobility and a catalyst for new thinking. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? Hardisty’s core lesson is that repeating the same actions while expecting different results is organisational self-deception. In Japan, change requires systems, structure, and trust — and leaders must design the pathways that make change executable from the top to the shop floor. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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Harry Hill — Former CEO, Shop Japan
02/13/2026
Harry Hill — Former CEO, Shop Japan
“Everybody having a shared sense of purpose and shared values… is just absolutely imperative.” “I trust you, and I start from the perspective of trust.” “I would always caution Western leaders… to not just fill up empty space.” “Getting buy-in from a Japanese team is really hard. But… once you get buy in… you absolutely over-perform.” “Identify who are the biggest obstacles… and move them immediately and publicly.” Harry Hill is an American entrepreneur whose career in Japan began by chance and grew into one of the country’s most recognised direct marketing success stories. His connection to Japan started in college after discovering Shorinji Kempo, which sparked an interest in Japanese culture and language. After studying Japanese for two years, he moved to Japan and worked as an English teacher, including a posting in Gifu Prefecture. A major turning point came when he worked as an international coordinator for a regional expo, building relationships with businesses across Gifu, Nagoya, and the wider Chubu region. After a short stint in New York as a bond trader, Hill returned to Japan in 1990 and began building businesses by spotting “holes in the market,” including work as a sports agent and grassroots exchange initiatives. In Nagoya, he co-founded a relocation and real estate services company for multinationals. His most significant chapter came with Oaklawn Marketing and Shop Japan, where he spent around two decades shaping Japan’s TV shopping and direct marketing landscape. Under his leadership, the business grew dramatically—expanding from roughly 15 billion yen to nearly 70 billion yen in annual sales, with around 1,000 employees. In 2009, NTT DoCoMo acquired 51% of the business, placing Hill in the rare position of leading a high-growth company inside a large, formal Japanese corporate structure. Now active in new ventures, Hill remains known for adaptability across industries and for a leadership approach shaped by building culture, empowerment, and sustained performance in Japan. Harry Hill’s leadership story in Japan reads like a case study in adaptability—starting with accidental encounters and evolving into deliberate, high-stakes decisions across entrepreneurship, corporate growth, and cultural navigation. His early fascination with Shorinji Kempo led to a deeper interest in Japan’s mindset: discipline, hierarchy, and the quiet social architecture that shapes how people organise themselves. That curiosity eventually turned into action—learning Japanese, moving to Japan, teaching English in Gifu, and then shifting into business after exposure to the Chubu region’s commercial networks during a major expo. Hill’s defining strength is an instinct for recognising market inefficiencies and cultural leverage points. He describes his work in terms of finding “holes in the market” and building solutions that fit the local context without fetishising Japanese exceptionalism. His belief that “people are people” becomes a strategy: focus less on what is uniquely Japanese and more on universal human needs—then customise execution with local sensitivity. This approach carried through to the growth of Shop Japan, where direct marketing and TV shopping became a platform for shaping entirely new product categories, particularly in home fitness. Yet the interview’s most valuable leadership content emerges not from growth numbers, but from Hill’s hard-won understanding of culture and execution under pressure. He recounts the challenge of building sustainable performance in a call centre environment—an area often defined by churn, stress, and transactional management. When turnover ran as high as 15–20% per month, the business could still be profitable, but it was unstable and costly. Hill’s solution was cultural engineering: building shared purpose, professionalism, and empowerment so the work became meaningful, not merely repetitive. That emphasis on meaning also becomes a decision system. Hill talks about integrity as something employees can only judge through transparency and consistent action—particularly in Japan, where leaders are often physically and symbolically removed. He also flips a common managerial assumption: rather than demanding people “earn trust,” he starts by giving trust and uses accountability as the mechanism that sustains it. For cross-cultural leadership, Hill offers a practical warning: Western executives often rush to fill silence, mistaking reflection for disengagement. In Japan, silence is frequently where thinking happens—where consensus-building and informal alignment (nemawashi) begin. The result is a leadership style that prioritises listening, synthesis, and decision clarity—then insists on execution. He frames this through his acronym VICES—vision, integrity, competency, efficiency, and sustained success—designed both as a checklist and a caution against ego. Across startups and conglomerates, Hill’s core lesson remains consistent: leadership in Japan is less about charisma and more about building a culture that can perform through highs and lows, while removing obstacles before they poison the system. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is shaped by comfort with hierarchy and role clarity, alongside a decision culture that values alignment before action. Japanese teams often expect leaders to manage the social process that precedes execution—consensus, context sharing, and careful calibration of group comfort versus productive discomfort. This dynamic connects closely to nemawashi and the ringi-sho style of organisational agreement, where the “decision” is often the final formal step after substantial informal work has already occurred. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they over-prioritise speed and verbal dominance. Hill cautions against filling silence, which can shut down participation and block honest input. Many leaders focus on getting things done without building the cultural environment that makes execution sustainable. Without that base, teams may comply with processes but withhold emotional commitment—leading to fragile performance and passive resistance. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Hill frames the issue less as risk aversion and more as uncertainty avoidance. Teams may resist actions that feel socially destabilising or poorly aligned, even when the underlying idea is sound. Once buy-in is achieved, however, Japanese teams can “absolutely over-perform,” because commitment becomes collective and execution standards rise. The challenge is that alignment requires patience, credibility, and consistency—especially in environments where leaders rotate every three to five years. What leadership style actually works? The most effective style combines listening with decisiveness. Hill prefers to “set the table,” step back to let others mediate, then synthesise and decide. This approach respects group process while maintaining leadership authority. It also supports a healthier culture: shared purpose, professionalism, empowerment, and clear standards. He emphasises that leaders must “walk the talk,” because consistency is the difference between a winning culture and a chaotic one. How can technology help? Hill points to major media and technology shifts—digital TV, mobile, and smartphones—as forces that reshape business models. In leadership terms, technology can support decision intelligence by improving visibility into performance, customer sentiment, and operational bottlenecks. Tools such as digital twins, predictive analytics, and structured feedback loops can help leaders stress-test decisions before rollout, reducing uncertainty and accelerating alignment without undermining consensus. Does language proficiency matter? Language matters, but Hill’s emphasis is more on behaviour than fluency. Leaders must demonstrate engagement beyond the inner circle, show curiosity about everyday work, and build trust through presence. Practical actions—wandering the organisation, listening to frontline voices, and respecting the social dance of decision-making—often matter as much as linguistic sophistication. Cultural literacy is the real multiplier. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? Hill’s ultimate lesson is that culture drives sustained performance. Start with trust, listen first, and build shared purpose so employees believe their work matters. Then be unflinching about obstacles: identify cultural “cancers” and remove them quickly and publicly, because the organisation already knows who they are. Finally, celebrate small wins to reduce fear of mistakes and to keep momentum alive—sustained success comes from maintaining morale and standards through both gains and setbacks. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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284 Grant Torrens — Managing Director, Hays Japan
02/06/2026
284 Grant Torrens — Managing Director, Hays Japan
“First thing I’d say is do it… just throw yourself into it.” “Spend the first ninety days getting to know the people… listening… before acting.” “Communication here is more high context… there’s a lot of reading between the lines.” “Trust is doing what you say you would do.” “A leader is someone who takes a strategy and a vision breaks that down into habits… and empowers people to execute.” Grant Torrens is an Australian recruitment leader and long-tenured Hays executive who became Managing Director of Hays Japan after a two-decade, multi-country journey with the firm. He joined Hays in London in 2006 through its graduate program—initially as a jobseeker who “fell into recruitment” like many in the industry—working a demanding hedge-fund desk in the City. After navigating the Global Financial Crisis, he took a career break to travel across Southeast Asia, where a short visit to colleagues in Singapore turned into a relocation, leveraging Hays’ global internal mobility and his transferable financial-services recruitment expertise. ] Years later, he was offered the Japan role—but COVID-era border restrictions meant he effectively “ran Japan from Singapore” for about 15 months, relying heavily on his Japan leadership team and building data-driven management systems to lead remotely. When he finally relocated to Tokyo, he focused on deep listening, high-clarity communication, and change management—while guiding Hays Japan through a strategic shift toward stronger service for Nikkei clients and hiring more Japanese nationals, including team members who don’t work in English. Grant Torrens’ leadership story is built on three threads: global mobility, remote-first problem solving under pressure, and culture-building at the intersection of Hays’ global norms and Japan’s high-context communication. He joined Hays “by accident” in London—starting in financial services at a moment when the City rewarded performance and speed, then learning to survive and adapt through the post-2008 shock. The early lesson that carries forward is pragmatic: when conditions change, your approach must pivot too. That mindset shows up repeatedly in his later Japan leadership—especially when COVID delayed his physical move and forced him to lead Japan from outside the country. During that “remote with a capital R” period, Torrens deliberately upgraded the mechanics of decision-making: he turned raw sales and activity data into usable management information, taught himself Excel at a much higher level, and used those insights to create sharper, more useful conversations over video calls. It’s a very modern leadership move, but grounded in a classic idea: if you can’t rely on presence, you rely on clarity—data clarity, expectation clarity, and communication clarity. Once on the ground in Japan, his operating principle remained “listen first.” He emphasizes that many leaders arrive, see processes that look “wrong,” and try to replace them with headquarters logic—only to discover later those practices existed to serve customers and local realities. His antidote is explicit: spend the first ~90 days learning, not executing change. In Japan specifically, he adds two important nuances: (1) communication tends to be high-context—direct bluntness that feels “normal” in Australia/UK can land badly in Japan, and (2) trust is tightly linked to process—nemawashi and broad involvement matter, even if it slows decisions compared to London-style speed. On culture, Torrens frames “Grant culture” as mostly aligned with Hays culture after 20 years inside the firm—but he still sees leadership latitude inside the umbrellas of global standards and Japanese expectations. His chosen lever is change: he wants a culture where change is less feared and more celebrated. That includes giving people “permission” to try, treating mistakes as learning data (especially early), avoiding public blame, and celebrating wins so innovation feels worth the effort. He also highlights the practical friction of language and meaning: even company values can translate oddly, so global messaging must be adapted carefully to remain faithful—especially as Hays Japan expands its Nikkei-facing business and hires more Japanese-only speakers. Q&A Summary Why did you choose recruitment—and how did Japan happen? Recruitment wasn’t the plan; it was an opportunity in London when he was unemployed and out of options. Japan was always in the background (he studied Japanese), but Singapore became the stepping stone because it was an easy transition into Asia—English-speaking, same company, and the financial services sector was transferable. How did you lead Japan while stuck in Singapore during COVID? Two pillars: a supportive Asia boss and a strong Japan management team. Personally, he built better reporting/insight systems—turning “raw data” into actionable information—so he could manage outcomes without relying on physical visibility. How do you build trust in Japan? He treats trust as universal but harder-won in Japan if you ignore high-context communication and consensus processes. Practically: reciprocate trust, be fair, do what you say you’ll do, and follow verbal messages with written confirmation to reduce misunderstanding—especially across language boundaries. How do you get bottom-up ideas in a high-context culture? He uses second-level (and broader) conversations—while explicitly asking permission and explaining intent so it doesn’t feel like bypassing managers. The goal is pattern recognition: common themes that reveal what the organization should improve, not “who said what about whom.” What advice would you give a leader moving to Japan? Do it (don’t overthink yourself into regret). Then: listen before acting (including to customers), communicate with extra clarity (avoid slang/idioms), and intentionally build a culture where change is normal and safe—because the organization will look different in 3–10 years no matter what. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and hosts multiple weekly podcasts and YouTube shows, including Japan’s Top Business Interviews.
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283 Beat Kraehenmann — Managing Director, Levitronix Japan
01/30/2026
283 Beat Kraehenmann — Managing Director, Levitronix Japan
“Don’t be the loud foreigner who just says we do this and this and this.” “It’s okay to make mistakes if you identify them, if you learn from them in the future.” “If you have an open mind, just listen first.” “You cannot spend enough time on just talking and communicating with people.” “For me, right now a leader is somebody who helps employees to achieve the potential, their mission.” Beat Kraehenmann is a Swiss-born electrical engineer who moved to Japan to change the trajectory of his life and immerse himself in Asia. After studying at a technical university and working in network engineering at Swiss Railways, he relocated to Japan independently, began full-time language study, and built early career momentum through contract roles before securing permanent employment as a network engineer. A long-time university friend working at Levitronix connected him to the company when the Swiss headquarters needed someone who could bridge Japan and Switzerland across language, culture, and technical detail. He joined Levitronix Japan around twelve and a half years ago and became Managing Director roughly a year later—his first formal management role. Under his leadership, the organisation expanded from four people in one location to a thirteen-person team spread across five offices (from Tokyo through Ogaki, Kyoto, Fukuoka and Kumamoto), supporting demanding customers in semiconductor and life sciences manufacturing with magnetic levitation pump technology designed to reduce particle contamination in ultra-fine production environments. Beat Kraehenmann leads Levitronix Japan at the intersection of Swiss engineering precision, Japan’s uncompromising quality expectations, and the realities of scaling a specialist business across multiple regional offices. Levitronix is a Swiss company producing fluid control devices—especially pumps for semiconductor manufacturing and life science production—where particle avoidance is mission-critical. As chip structures push deeper into nanometre ranges, even microscopic contamination can become catastrophic, and the firm’s magnetic levitation approach is positioned as a practical advantage in an industry that prizes stability and repeatability. Kraehenmann’s leadership story begins with a deliberate personal disruption: he chose Japan because it felt safe enough to navigate while still offering a gateway to broader Asia, and he committed to language learning on the ground. That same pattern—commit, learn, adapt—shapes his approach as Managing Director. He describes leadership less as command-and-control and more as enabling others: providing the means, information, and training so employees can succeed without dependency on him. In Japan, where consensus-building (nemawashi, ringi-sho) and uncertainty avoidance often influence decision velocity, he emphasises communication discipline: listening, checking understanding, and creating the time to align—especially across non-native English environments where misunderstandings compound quickly. He also frames long-term commitment as a trust accelerator, both for customers and for employees: staying power matters in Japan, and reliability is read as intent. A defining cultural bridge in his management is psychological safety around learning. Levitronix’s stance that mistakes are acceptable when identified and learned from runs counter to “no defect” instincts that can dominate Japanese quality mindsets. Kraehenmann doesn’t dismiss that instinct; instead, he contextualises it with real-world examples of fast growth, supplier constraints, and even customer admissions that quality issues are a daily struggle. The message is not “mistakes don’t matter,” but “learning matters more than denial”—a practical compromise that maintains credibility with Japanese expectations while keeping a smaller, faster-moving organisation functional. As the company expanded geographically, he encountered the classic distributed-team problem: “frogs in wells” with limited visibility into each other’s context. His solution is deliberately flexible—more meetings when communication gaps appear, fewer when the system stabilises—paired with careful hiring for autonomy. He also differentiates customer engagement from template-driven “Japanese” presentations, pushing teams to stand out through demonstrations and tactile proof, while still respecting relationship norms. And while AI dominates headlines, he notes semiconductor’s conservatism: innovation must serve stable mass manufacturing, not disrupt it for fashion—though decision intelligence, digital twins, and data-driven reliability will increasingly shape how suppliers prove value without threatening uptime. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is shaped by long-term orientation, relationship continuity, and high expectations for reliability. Consensus processes (nemawashi, ringi-sho) can be invisible to outsiders yet decisive in outcomes, and leaders must work with cultural uncertainty avoidance rather than against it. For Kraehenmann, the practical implication is time: time to listen, time to confirm understanding, and time to build trust through consistent behaviour. Why do global executives struggle? Many global executives arrive expecting headquarters logic to translate directly, then get frustrated by different rhythms of decision-making, communication, and customer expectations. Kraehenmann’s warning is straightforward: don’t arrive as “the loud foreigner.” Respect is conveyed through curiosity, patience, and willingness to adapt the approach to local reality—especially before trying to “fix” anything. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan often appears risk-averse because the cost of defects is treated as existential, particularly in high-precision industries. But Kraehenmann frames the nuance: once trust exists and the learning story is clear, improvement is expected and experimentation is possible. Risk is not rejected; it is managed through process, narrative clarity, and demonstrated commitment to not repeating errors. What leadership style actually works? A credible, team-embedded style works: being “part of the team,” leading from the front, and doing whatever needs doing. Kraehenmann positions himself as a counsellor and mentor—helping employees prepare, equipping them with case studies, training, and presentation skills—rather than obsessing over targets and directives. This balances authority with approachability and reinforces “same boat” solidarity. How can technology help? Technology helps when it improves stability and learning without threatening continuity. In conservative manufacturing environments, tools that support reliability—analytics, decision intelligence, simulation, and digital twins—tend to be more acceptable than disruptive experimentation. AI may have value, but only when it strengthens repeatability, quality, and uptime rather than becoming a buzzword project. Does language proficiency matter? Yes, because language is trust and speed. Kraehenmann notes that multilingual environments are often “non-native on both sides,” which increases misunderstanding risk. Investing time in communication—speaking, listening, re-checking meaning—matters as much as vocabulary. Japanese proficiency also improves daily work enjoyment and strengthens customer and employee rapport, even if fluency takes years. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is enabling others: leadership is helping employees fulfil their potential and mission, and doing the quiet work of communication and trust-building that makes that possible. In Japan, that means commitment, humility, and consistent follow-through—paired with a learning mindset that treats mistakes as data, not shame. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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282 Joerg Bauer — Representative Director, Heidelberg Japan
01/23/2026
282 Joerg Bauer — Representative Director, Heidelberg Japan
“If we can sell it in Japan, we can sell it also in other countries.” “The first thing I believe is honesty, especially in difficult situations.” “The word “musukashi” is not allowed anymore in our company.” “When an engineer is working at the customer and he cannot solve the problem… even if time is up, he would not walk away.” “You need to give them… a safety rope.” Joerg Bauer is the Representative Director of Heidelberg Japan, leading a business that provides industrial printing and packaging solutions across software, machinery, and consumables. Trained in electronics and data processing, he joined Heidelberg early and built his career at the intersection of engineering, customer service, and operational transformation. He first came to Japan as a young engineer—curious about Japanese manufacturing and culture—and expected a three-to-five-year stint that became a decade. After returning to Germany for several years, he relocated again to Japan in 2008 and has remained since, spending the majority of his professional life in-country. Over nearly four decades with Heidelberg (including his student period), Bauer progressed from technical roles to sales support, then into major integration work as a project manager during corporate merger and SAP rollout, later becoming IT business manager. Back in Japan, he led initiatives such as introducing an online shop for consumables—initially resisted internally as “not possible in Japan”—before moving through service leadership and sales leadership. In November 2019, he became the top executive in Japan, drawing on long-term relationships, practical bilingual experience, and a clear view of how global standards must be delivered through local Japanese expectations. Heidelberg is not a desktop-printer brand; it is an industrial backbone for companies producing packaging, books, and brochures—machines that can stretch 30–40 metres, weigh dozens of tonnes, and require deep integration of mechanics, electronics, and software workflows from PDF to professional output. In Japan, where customer expectations for precision and service are famously demanding, Joerg Bauer describes the market as a proving ground: if a solution succeeds here, it can succeed almost anywhere. That mindset shapes not just product quality, but operating tempo—such as rapid call-back expectations and a service culture that must feel uncompromisingly Japanese to the customer. Bauer’s leadership story is inseparable from cultural translation. He sees genuine overlap between German and Japanese monozukuri—high-precision engineering and pride in build quality—yet emphasises that working methods diverge. In his view, Japanese competitors historically excelled by targeting operators’ pain points and incrementally automating “the hardest parts” of a process. Heidelberg’s approach leaned more holistic, sometimes slower, aiming for a unified system rather than a patchwork of quick fixes. That contrast becomes a leadership lesson: Japan often rewards kaizen and immediate usability, while global headquarters may prioritise system architecture and standardisation. The leader’s job is to bridge both without triggering organisational paralysis. He also treats Japan’s “zero defect” instinct as both strength and tension. Perfection is culturally persuasive, but defining “perfect” is complex—especially in areas like colour, where human perception varies and measurement systems (LAB values) can create a more rational definition of quality. Bauer frames this as an executive’s communication challenge: aligning printing companies, their clients, and internal teams around what quality means in measurable terms, without dismissing the cultural preference for flawless outcomes. Internally, he is candid about the real constraint: uncertainty avoidance. When teams say “muzukashii,” they often mean risk, status loss, channel conflict, or fear of being linked to failure. His response is practical: find early adopters, run controlled trials, protect participants from reputational downside, and then scale what works. As the top executive since 2019, he anchors trust in honesty—especially during difficult periods involving financial pressure and restructuring—while resisting the temptation to hide behind “Japan is different” as an excuse. For Bauer, effective leadership in Japan is not softness; it is clarity, preparation (nemawashi), and a consistent safety rope that makes innovation feel survivable. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is uniquely shaped by consensus-building, nemawashi, and a deep preference for harmony that reduces surprises. Bauer’s experience suggests that outcomes improve when stakeholders are aligned before formal decisions—similar to ringi-sho logic—because it lowers execution risk and face-loss. The practical implication is that leaders must invest earlier in communication, even when it feels like “over-communication” to global executives. Why do global executives struggle? Bauer highlights isolation as a core failure mode: arriving as president without language, relationships, or a trusted internal power base leaves leaders cut off from the real data and informal context. Teams may answer only what is asked, not what is relevant. Without the ability to ask precise questions—and verify through multiple sources—leaders can drift off-track while believing they are informed. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Bauer treats “risk aversion” as uncertainty avoidance rather than laziness. “Muzukashii” often signals fear of failure, channel conflict, or reputational cost. The workaround is not motivational speeches; it is risk design: small pilots, visible executive sponsorship, and protection for participants. In decision intelligence terms, leaders must reduce perceived downside, increase clarity, and make learning safe. What leadership style actually works? His emphasis is direct: honesty in difficult situations, plus a clear rationale for change. He can be “very German” in being frank and direct, but he pairs that with structured buy-in and visible modelling of how to communicate with headquarters. He argues that near the customer, the organisation must behave Japanese—language, documents, yen-based business norms—while headquarters discussions sometimes require unusually direct boundary-setting. How can technology help? In Bauer’s domain, technology is not abstract transformation theatre; it is operational leverage. Software workflows, automation, measurement standards (such as colour metrics), and modern service systems can reduce ambiguity and speed decisions. Applied well, digital twins and predictive maintenance concepts can also shift service from reactive “fix it now” pressure to planned reliability—supporting both customer expectations and internal resource planning. Does language proficiency matter? Bauer implies language is a major accelerator for trust and accuracy. Without Japanese proficiency, leaders rely on interpreters who may lack business judgment, or on English speakers who may not be organisational power players. Language competence improves question quality, speeds nemawashi, and reduces misalignment between intent and interpretation. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? Bauer’s core lesson is that leadership is bridge-building under uncertainty: earn trust through honesty, reduce fear with a safety rope, and translate between cultures without letting either side become an excuse. In Japan, sustainable performance comes from combining consensus with clarity—bringing people along while still insisting on profitability, accountability, and forward movement. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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281 Shu Kimura — Founder, Boulangerie Maison Kayser Japan
01/16/2026
281 Shu Kimura — Founder, Boulangerie Maison Kayser Japan
“The purpose of my business is not only bake and sell, because we are introducing… culture or food habits of France to the Japanese people.” “Japanese people don't buy baguettes because they don't know how to eat it.” “After twenty shops, I needed to change my mentality to be the new type leaders.” “I have responsibility for the life of the workers.” Shu Kimura is the founder of Boulangerie Maison Kayser Japan and a fellow Rotarian. Born into the Kimura family, whose ancestors helped introduce bread-making techniques to Japan via Nagasaki (Dejima) in the 1600s, he chose to build a separate path rather than continue the established family business. He studied law at university, then worked in insurance for six years in market development before deciding to become a baker. He trained in the United States in Kansas, studying wheat science and fermentation chemistry, then worked as a baker at Amy’s Bread in New York City. He later went to France to train closely with artisanal baker Eric Kayser living near his home as a private trainee before being invited to become a business partner to bring the brand concept to Japan. Kimura built the company in 2000 and opened the first Japan store in Takanawa in 2001. Over time, he grew the business to dozens of locations across Japan, leading hundreds of employees while navigating Japan’s distinctive customer habits, service expectations, and people-management realities. Shu Kimura’s leadership story is a case study in translating a food culture—not merely selling a product—into a market with different habits, assumptions, and decision styles. He entered baking after a first career in insurance, then rebuilt himself through technical study of fermentation and wheat science in Kansas, practical craft in New York, and high-intensity apprenticeship in France. That blend of science, craft, and commercial pragmatism shaped how he approached Japan: with conviction about quality, but equal focus on “how to sell” in a society where bread is often treated as a one-hand snack rather than part of a shared table. His early strategic insight was not that Japanese consumers disliked baguettes, but that many simply lacked a usage framework. That is a leadership lesson in market education: changing behaviour requires storytelling, context, and repeated micro-demonstrations. Sampling hundreds of baguette slices daily, Kimura used seasonal moments—Christmas and New Year’s gatherings—to help customers discover bread as a centrepiece of hospitality. The result was not incremental improvement but a demand inflection point: the product did not change; the meaning did. As the company expanded, Kimura’s definition of leadership evolved in stages: hands-on labour at one to three shops, charisma and founder-driven momentum from four to twenty, and then a deliberate shift from “activist and baker” to architect of systems, accountability, and culture. This transition mirrors a broader Japan leadership truth: scale forces leaders to move from doing to enabling, from individual mastery to organisational capability. Kimura also highlights a practical contrast between European-style top-down authority and Japan’s preference for shared understanding and bottom-up execution. Rather than merely issuing task-level directives, he argues that people in Japan need the whole picture first—the total view—before work can be broken into puzzle pieces. This aligns with consensus dynamics such as nemawashi (pre-alignment) and ringi-sho (circulating approval), where clarity of purpose and social alignment can matter as much as speed. In an uncertainty-avoidant environment, trust is built through repeated communication: purpose, targets, role clarity, and recognition systems that show personal growth. Technology appears in his leadership thinking not as novelty, but as operational resilience—sales planning, ordering, loss control, and cross-application data transfer. The strategic point is decision intelligence: reducing waste and stabilising performance through better signals, with the potential to build digital-twin-like visibility into demand, production, and staffing over time. Yet Kimura remains grounded: culture, education, and human motivation are the levers that keep quality consistent across many locations. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Kimura frames Japan as a context where leadership effectiveness depends on shared understanding, not merely authority. He contrasts European “boss is boss” top-down control with a Japanese style that works better when leaders explain the total view of the company first, then break it down into actionable pieces. In practice, that means investing heavily in communication of purpose, targets, and role boundaries—an approach consistent with consensus-building patterns such as nemawashi and ringi-sho. Why do global executives struggle? He implies the struggle often comes from applying familiar command-and-control habits in a market that expects alignment, context, and relationship-based coherence. Leaders who only provide “do this, do that” instructions may fail to create commitment. Without the larger narrative—why the work matters—people drift, and brand consistency erodes across locations. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Kimura’s experience suggests “risk-averse” is often a shorthand for “uncertainty-avoidant.” The baguette challenge was not fear of trying something new; it was uncertainty about how to use it. When he taught customers how to eat baguette and anchored it to family occasions, behaviour changed rapidly. The leadership implication: reduce uncertainty with education, examples, and social proof. What leadership style actually works? He describes a staged evolution: doer-leader at small scale, charismatic founder at mid-scale, then system-builder after twenty shops. The effective style becomes one of delegation with accountability—pushing responsibility down to store and area leaders while reinforcing philosophy and standards through education. Trust is sustained through fair, frequently improved HR systems that recognise growth and provide future pathways. How can technology help? Kimura points to connected planning for orders and sales, and systems to manage loss control and operational accuracy. He also discusses using systems to support smaller independent bakeries with HR and payroll calculations. This is technology as operational leverage—moving toward decision intelligence and potentially digital twin capabilities—while acknowledging cost constraints and the reality that some AI applications may still be premature. Does language proficiency matter? He treats language as a tool rather than the essence: interpretation can solve comprehension, but the substance of what a leader communicates is decisive. In other words, clarity of message, philosophy, and intent carries more weight than linguistic perfection. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? For Kimura, leadership is responsibility for people’s livelihoods: failure affects hundreds of jobs, not just the founder’s personal assets. That sense of stewardship drives his focus on communication, education, continuous system improvement, and the creation of a “happy life with bread” shared by bakers, shop staff, and customers alike. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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280 Mika Matsuo - Former CHRO, AIG Japan
01/10/2026
280 Mika Matsuo - Former CHRO, AIG Japan
“I listen and I also am always very transparent.” “Who cares about what people think about me?” “If my boss, my future boss, thinks that I’m capable, I must be.” “Leadership is really defining where we’re going, whether it’s the end state or whether it’s a goal.” Mika Matsuo is a Japan-based executive and former AIG Japan CHRO known for repeatedly stepping into unfamiliar roles and delivering change. Born and raised in Japan but educated in an international school environment in Yokohama, she took an early decision to build a global career, studying at Tufts University in Boston and completing an MBA at the University of San Francisco. She began her career at Citibank Japan during the build-out of its retail business, where exposure to strong, international leaders shaped her standards for integrity, preparedness, and opportunity-taking. After earning Six Sigma Master Black Belt credentials, she moved into an internal consulting role at JPMorgan Chase during the post-merger integration period, then joined Tokyo Star Bank as Head of HR without prior HR experience—learning labour law, restructures, and culture change in real time. She later expanded her scope as Head of HR for Asia Pacific at Moody’s and returned to Tokyo Star Bank to lead the retail business, navigating crisis leadership after the March 2011 earthquake. She joined AIG to help integrate AIU and Fuji Fire & Marine, later serving nearly a decade and attributing successful integration to clear leadership direction and a “build a new company” mindset. Today, she contributes through board and advisory work, drawing on a career defined by adaptability in Japan’s complex corporate environment. Mika Matsuo’s career arc reads like a deliberate challenge to the usual Japanese corporate script: international education, overseas degrees, and then a sequence of high-stakes roles where she often began as an outsider to the function, the business line, or both. Rather than treating those gaps as liabilities, she used them as leverage—asking questions early, leaning on strong teams, and creating trust through transparency. The result is a leadership style that is calm under uncertainty, candid about limitations, and built around listening as a strategic discipline rather than a soft skill. Her formative years in global finance gave her two lasting advantages. First, mentors who rewarded capability over status helped her internalise a belief that many professionals—especially women—struggle to adopt: if the organisation has decided she can do it, she can. Second, she saw how quickly culture shifts when leaders normalise openness, practical delegation, and continuous learning. Those lessons mattered most when she moved into Japan’s banking transformation era, where legacy norms around hierarchy, gender expectations, and “we’ve always done it this way” thinking still dominated. At Tokyo Star Bank, she helped introduce practices that would be routine in many gaishikei firms but were disruptive inside a traditional Japanese bank context—removing women’s uniforms, supporting spousal transfers to preserve women’s careers, and encouraging leave for study and volunteering. The aim wasn’t cosmetic modernisation; it was building a more transparent, sustainable system that could attract and retain talent. That commitment to sustainability becomes a recurring theme in her advice: organisations that still depend on extreme overtime, weekend obligations, and performative busyness are not structurally built for the future workforce Japan needs. A defining moment of her leadership development came during the March 2011 earthquake response, when she saw high-performing teamwork replace individual heroics. With a Sendai branch that had to reopen under Ministry of Finance expectations, her role shifted to decision-making, prioritisation, and supporting a team that was independently executing critical actions. That experience reinforced her belief that leadership is not doing everything—it is creating clarity, building trust, and letting capable people run. Across roles—from HR transformation to business leadership to post-merger integration—she returns to the same core: authenticity paired with respect, vulnerability as a trust-builder, and an open mind that actively checks bias. In Japan, where consensus-building (nemawashi) and formal approval flows (ringi-sho) often shape outcomes, her approach offers a practical bridge: respect the process, accelerate it through clarity, and build followership by being transparent about goals, trade-offs, and constraints. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is uniquely shaped by the need for trust, respect, and collective alignment. Decision-making often relies on consensus-building through nemawashi and formal pathways such as ringi-sho, meaning leaders must manage time, stakeholders, and expectations while maintaining harmony. Matsuo’s emphasis is that respect for Japanese ways of doing business is non-negotiable, but understanding the process helps leaders make it faster and more effective once they know how the pieces fit together. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they misread capability through the lens of English fluency and underestimate how much “invisible coordination” is happening beneath the surface. They may also push for rapid decisions before alignment has formed, mistaking slower Japanese pacing for resistance. Matsuo’s warning is blunt: don’t be deceived by language skill, and don’t accept “not possible in Japan” as a default answer—often it means someone simply doesn’t know how to do it legally, respectfully, and in an organised way. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan is frequently labelled risk-averse, but a more accurate framing is uncertainty avoidance. Leaders may appear cautious because they are working to reduce ambiguity and prevent downstream disruption. Once a decision is made, execution can move quickly—especially if the leader has done the groundwork to secure buy-in. What leadership style actually works? The leadership style that works is clarity plus trust. Matsuo’s playbook is listening deeply, being transparent (including about personal constraints), and staying respectful regardless of personal affinity. She also models vulnerability—admitting what she doesn’t know, asking teams to teach her, and reframing “not knowing” as a normal condition in modern complex work. How can technology help? In environments overloaded with information and stakeholder constraints, technology can support better leadership decisions by improving visibility and scenario planning. Approaches such as decision intelligence can help leaders prioritise key risks and opportunities, while tools like digital twins can model operational impacts before changes are rolled out—reducing uncertainty and supporting consensus-building without relying on endless meetings. Does language proficiency matter? Language helps, but it is not decisive. Making the effort can signal commitment, and language learning can accelerate cultural understanding, but many successful leaders in Japan remain effective without high Japanese proficiency. The critical requirement is respect for culture, discipline in stakeholder management, and the ability to avoid confusing language ability with professional capability. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? Leadership is defining the destination clearly and moving the whole team along a believable path. Whether leading from the front or supporting from behind, the leader’s job is to simplify the goal, align the top team, and create the conditions for the organisation to move together—especially in times of uncertainty. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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279 Tomo Kamiya, President PTC Japan
12/19/2025
279 Tomo Kamiya, President PTC Japan
“I think curiosity is very important. When you’re curious about something, you listen.” “You have to be at the forefront, not the back. You can’t, hide behind and say, ‘hey, you know, guys solve it’, right?” “When they trust you, beautiful things happen.” “Ideas are welcome. You know, ideas are free. But it’s got be data driven.” Tomo Kamiya is President Japan at PTC, a company known for parametric design and CAD-driven simulation that helps engineers model, test, and refine complex products digitally before manufacturing. He began his career in sales at Bosch, covering Kanagawa and Yamanashi with a highly autonomous, remote-work style that was ahead of its time, learning early that trust and relationship continuity—not brand alone—move outcomes in Japan. He later joined Dell during its disruptive growth era, moving from enterprise sales into marketing and broader regional responsibility, including supporting Korea marketing and later leading the server business, where his team hit number one market share in Japan. After a short consulting stint connected to Japan Telecom, he joined AMD to grow the business in Japan, then relocated to Singapore to run a broader South Asia remit and strategic customers. He subsequently led a wide Asia Pacific portfolio at D&M Holdings across multiple markets, navigating shifting consumer behaviour as subscription and streaming changed the fundamentals of product value. That experience led naturally into Adobe during its historic shift from perpetual software to subscription, where he led the Digital Media business in Japan (including Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat) for almost a decade. Across this cross-industry arc, he has repeatedly adapted to business model change, regional cultural differences, and the practical realities of leading people in Japan—especially the need to listen deeply, build trust patiently, and step forward decisively when problems hit. Tomo Kamiya’s leadership story is, at its core, a story about compressing complexity—first in products, then in organisations. At PTC, he sits at the intersection of engineering reality and digital abstraction: the ability to take something massive—a ship, an engine, an entire manufacturing system—and “frame” it into a screen so it can be simulated, stress-tested, and improved before any physical cost is incurred. That same instinct shows up in the way he talks about people and performance. In his earliest Bosch years, he learned that Japan’s reliability culture does not eliminate the need for continuous trust-building; even a global brand can stall if the relationship energy disappears. His answer was to create value where the buyer’s uncertainty lives—showing up, demonstrating, educating, and, as he put it, “sell myself,” because credibility travels faster than product brochures. That bias for action stayed with him through Dell’s high-velocity era, where “latest and the greatest” rewarded leaders who could anticipate market timing and organise teams around speed without losing discipline. Later, running regional remits outside Japan, he saw the contrast between Japan’s “no defect” mindset and emerging markets that prioritised pace. Rather than treat one as right and the other as wrong, he learned to search for the productive middle ground: the discipline that prevents future failure, paired with the pragmatism that prevents paralysis. It is a useful lens for Japan, where uncertainty avoidance and consensus expectations can slow decisions unless the leader builds momentum through listening and clear intent. In his most practical leadership shift, an executive coach forced a hard look at his calendar: too much time on objectives, not enough time on people. The result was a deliberate reallocation toward one-on-ones, deeper listening, and clearer delegation—creating what amounts to a management operating system that improves decision speed because the leader knows what is really happening. He sees ideas as abundant but insists that investment requires decision intelligence: data points, ROI thinking, and a shared logic that gives teams confidence to commit. In Japan’s consensus environment—where nemawashi and ringi-sho-style alignment often determine whether execution truly happens—his approach is to build trust through presence, make it safe for the “silent minority” to contribute, and then move decisively when critical moments arrive. Technology, including AI as a “co-pilot,” can help leaders think through scenarios and prepare responses, but he remains clear that empathy and execution in the worst moments cannot be outsourced. The leadership standard, as he defines it, is simple and demanding: when things go south, step to the front. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is shaped by trust-building, restraint, and the practical demands of consensus. Even when products are high quality and risk reduction is strong, outcomes often hinge on relationships and continuity. Japan’s consensus culture—often expressed through nemawashi and ringi-sho-style alignment—means leaders must invest time in listening, building internal confidence, and demonstrating respect for the context that teams and customers protect. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often arrive with a headquarters lens and try to “fix” what looks inefficient before understanding why it exists. When they change processes or people without learning the customer rationale, they trigger resistance and lose credibility. The gap is not intelligence; it is context. Japan requires deliberate time in the market and inside the organisation to decode what is really being optimised—often customer trust, stability, and long-term reliability. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Japan can appear risk-averse, but much of the behaviour is better described as uncertainty avoidance. The goal is to reduce surprises and protect relationships, not to avoid progress. Kamiya’s early sales experience shows that buyers will pay for reliability when the cost of failure is high. The leadership challenge is to move forward while lowering uncertainty—through data, clear rationale, and predictable communication—rather than forcing speed without alignment. What leadership style actually works? The style that works is visible, empathetic, and action-oriented. Trust grows when leaders walk the floor, create everyday touchpoints, and listen in detail—especially because many Japanese employees will not speak up easily. At the same time, Kamiya argues that in critical moments—big decisions, business model shifts, major complaints—the leader must be “at the forefront,” not hiding behind delegation. Delegation matters, but stepping forward in the hardest moments is what earns trust. How can technology help? Technology helps leaders compress complexity and make better decisions. In product terms, simulation and digital-twin style approaches reduce risk by testing before manufacturing. In leadership terms, data-driven thinking improves idea selection, investment confidence, and ROI clarity. AI can function as a co-pilot for scenario planning—offering options and framing responses—but it does not replace human judgement, empathy, or the social work of building consensus. Does language proficiency matter? Language matters because it shrinks distance. Full fluency may take years, but even small efforts signal respect and closeness, making it easier to build rapport and trust. Language is not just vocabulary; it is an everyday bridge that reduces friction with teams and increases the leader’s ability to read nuance—critical in a culture where people may be reserved. What’s the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is that trust is built through time, listening, and decisive presence. Leadership is revealed when trouble hits: the leader who listens, takes action, and stands in front earns durable commitment. Once trust is established, the organisation can move faster—because consensus forms more naturally, delegation improves, and decisions carry less uncertainty. Author Credentials Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー). In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.
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