Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan

Reiko Nakamura, Managing Director of SGK Japan, first began her career as a radio DJ in Kobe, where she grew up and graduated from university. She entered the advertising world joining Kobe Shimbun Jigyosha, one of the largest advertising firm in Kobe as a salesperson. During her time there, she became number one in her sales team. Ms. Nakamura's focus on providing solutions to customers rather than purely selling ad space helped her build strong client relationships. Hoping to gain more global experience, Ms. Nakamura began learning English. She then moved to Osaka to enter SGK, working for Proctor & Gamble as a Print Production Manager. After becoming an Account Manager, Ms. Nakamura stepped into her current role as the Managing Director of SGK, moving from Kobe to Tokyo.

When comparing leading between Japanese and multinational companies, Ms. Nakamura says she saw differences in decision making processes between the Japanese and Americans. She observes that the Japanese are detail-oriented perfectionists and build long term client relationships through a set process. With the Americans, Ms. Nakamura notes they are very decisive and think in a black and white logical manner. Thus, when leading her Japanese employees, Ms. Nakamura carefully explains processes and the reason behind a certain task. The clients also have different expectations depending on their background, and Ms. Nakamura says her relationship building style is different between local and global contracts. With local clients, they require much more details and processes to follow. On recruitment, Ms. Nakamura appealed to those who liked working for more flexible and less hierarchical environments as well as those that want to work for big brand names like Coca Cola.

As a women leader, Ms. Nakamura first struggled to show her leadership as she initially thought she had to adapt a more authoritative style. However, after receiving some training and gaining further experience, Ms. Nakamura realized it is best to be herself and use her strengths in communication. She has weekly Monday morning meetings with her team to ensure they stay engaged despite the pandemic and remote work environment. She values having one on one communication with all her staff as well as having daily conversations with her managers. In order to educate her team members, Ms. Nakamura tries to lead by example but also show her struggles so others can learn from them.

On innovation, Ms. Nakamura encourages her staff to think outside of the box. She has encouraged her team members to come up with innovative ideas and present them to each other. Additionally, Ms. Nakamura values the execution of those ideas and encourages people to track what they are doing and follow up. Ms. Nakamura is also part of organizations to support other businesswomen to take on more leadership roles.

For newcomers to Japan, Ms. Nakamura advises them to encourage Japanese employees to speak up and provide explanation on certain tasks or projects to build trust. She also encourages learning some Japanese to show interest in Japanese culture. Ms. Nakamura lastly advises to "not be afraid to open every door to see the world."

Ken Shibusawa shares extensive insight in the global financial sector and alternative investment that has been influenced by his great-great-grandfather, Eiichi Shibusawa, the "Father of Japanese Capitalism." Mr. Shibusawa was born in Japan and grew up in the United States from a young age when his family first moved to New York. He graduated from the University of Texas in Chemical Engineering but decided to pursue a different career course. After working for an NGO started by his uncle called the Japan Centre for International Exchange, Mr. Shibusawa obtained an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Mr. Shibusawa then went into finance, working for JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs in Japan. Mr. Shibusawa is currently the CEO of Shibusawa and Company, Inc., a strategic advisory firm. He also founded and leads Commons Asset Management, Inc. Additionally, Mr. Shibusawa is the director of Keizai Doyukai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives) and a steering committee member of UNDP SDG Impact, advisor of University of Tokyo, and visiting professor at Seikei University. Mr. Shibusawa also runs a podcast called "Made in Japan" https://madewithjapan.net/

Mr. Shibusawa recalls that working in investment firms during the Japanese economic bubble in the 80s was a mixture of fun experiences combined with stress and frustration. After turning 40, he made the decision to start his own business and founded Shibusawa & Co. When recruiting staff, Mr. Shibusawa mainly found his team through connections and just when the business was beginning to pick up, the 2008 Financial crisis occurred. Shortly before the crisis, Mr. Shibusawa started another company in 2008, the Commons Asset Management, which was a mutual fund specialized in long term investment opportunities to Japanese households.

To overcome the crisis and the challenges of leading a business during uncertain times, Mr. Shibusawa started out modestly asking for small amount investments and used the internet to promote his companies as well as using his network. He also saw a connection between his mission to encourage individuals to invest for long-term accumulation of wealth to secure the future of their families with Eiichi Shibusawa's philosophy on ethical capitalism. Mr. Shibusawa saw the crisis as an opportunity to focus more on alternative investments and focused on growing his asset management business while researching further on Eiichi Shibusawa and his works.

On gaining trust, Mr. Shibusawa says it is important to share a common purpose beyond financial rewards. For his asset management company, Mr. Shibusawa's purpose is to have long-term value creation and he expects his team to share his mission. He also adds how a sense of growth keeps the organization together. Additionally, having worked in a global corporate environment, Mr. Shibusawa recognizes the need to be a "translator" between headquarters and local offices, responding to both digital and analogue demands.

On his advice to foreign leaders coming into Japan, Mr. Shibusawa advises to be observant and listen to people who are not vocal yet have brilliant ideas. He also recommends learning basic Japanese to win the local team's trust and respect.

David Wouters is the President of InterSearch Japan, an executive search and human resources consultancy company, and the former Corporate Liaison Manager of Coca-Cola Japan. Mr. Wouters first arrived in Japan in 1969 to work for Coca-Cola as the Marketing Manager after working in the US and Southeast Asia for a number of years.

Mr. Wouters developed a Coke systemized training program in Japan to train employees on both the American and Japanese side to be able to better sell and market the product in Japan. In comparing Japanese and American way of sales and marketing, Mr. Wouters points out the Japanese are more relationship based whereas the US had a rigourous system and specific set of objectives. In order to join these two different cultures, Mr. Wouters encouraged open communication by having many meetings and looking at case studies. Mr. Wouters explains: "I found the best way to teach a program like that was [to] find out what they wanted and get to their thinking and then utilize their thinking with the other side's thinking through meetings, organizations, sales programs that we developed." He also later brought in the independent bottling companies to the meetings as well to ensure Coca-Cola and the bottlers worked well together. Mr. Wouters adds: "We had to make it a join effort. Wasn't easy at the time [but eventually] I got a lot of cooperation from both sides because they both wanted to be strong." During Mr. Wouter's time, Coca-Cola also began a recruiting program that hired young Japanese graduates who had studied overseas by visiting universities. Out of the pool of these graduates, one eventually became the company president.

As part of forming good relations between diverse range of employees, Mr. Wouters also encouraged playing leisure activities together, such as golfing. He claims: "if you make the people that are working with you happy, that's one of the secrets of training. If you strictly authorize or direct, you're going to have a problem. I had to make both sides want to work together and sports to me was one of the activities that work best." After playing golf, Mr. Wouters recalls having a drink and then holding serious meetings on marketing and sales. Mr. Wouters emphasizes the importance of getting cooperation and getting people to understand what results and benefits the project will bring to them. He adds: "you had to do it in a way that was appreciated. It's the same thing in life. You have to gain appreciation by the way you act or react with other peoples and their situations." Since the training programs were successful, the US asked Mr. Wouters to replicate it in Atlanta. Mr. Wouters then went to graduate school at New York University's Stern School of Business and eventually resigned from Coca-cola in 1976. After establishing his own company, InterSearch Japan, Mr. Wouters was asked by Coke to join them again in 2019 .

On advice to new foreign leaders in Japan, Mr. Wouters highlights understanding the culture and people to be key. Secondly, he advises leaders to work together with your team in order to lead them, and choose to work with people who work with each other on a "pro-positive" manner. Thirdly, Mr. Wouters emphasizes the value of being receptive which he finds brings people closer. He explains: "get involved with them, not above them…If you are with them, they have more tendency to be with you."

Moeko Suzuki provides valuable insight as a young global-minded entrepreneur having studied in the UK, US and established two organizations in Japan – StartUp Lady and Tailor Innovations. After graduating from an American University, Ms. Suzuki returned to Japan and worked for a company specializing in foreign direct investment as a business developer. After working for two companies, she founded Tailor Innovations, a company that provides a variety of IT and consulting services including manufacturing of IoT products, live streaming support, and helping Japanese business expand abroad. In 2015 she co-founded StartUp Lady, a nonprofit organization that aims to connect and help educate a diverse community of entrepreneurs who are starting up their business.

Giving up a stable job, Ms. Suzuki decided to pursue her dream and establish Tailor Innovations. Ms. Suzuki initially faced many challenges such as being unable to communicate with engineers in creating the operating platform. Ms. Suzuki also found it challenging to grow her network as a young entrepreneur without former connection. When recruiting her team, Ms. Suzuki focused on hiring people who did not want to work in the traditional Japanese company culture but be in a more flat, transparent organization. Her company also provides flexible working styles for people who are interested in holding a side job. Ms. Suzuki notes that the change in Japanese government policies around 2017 have made it much easier for foreigners to work in Japan and the recent pandemic has also allowed more companies to permit their employees working more than one job.

On motivating people, Ms. Suzuki notes the importance of having close communication with each individual to understand their needs and where they want to direct their energy. In order to establish this trusting relationships, Ms. Suzuki has frequent one-on-one meetings at least 1-2 times a week. Ms. Suzuki also actively participates in social events with her employees to bond with them not just on a professional basis but in a more casual environment. Moreover, Ms. Suzuki carefully coordinates what type of work people are assigned so that her employees can focus on utilizing their skillset. For example, with the CEO of the company, who is also her husband, Ms. Suzuki splits responsibilities based on their expertise and strength, which she finds makes them a good team and well trusted by the employees. Additionally, she seeks to create an open environment where her employees can freely admit their mistakes in order to prevent future mistakes from happening and they are able to find the best solution together. Ms. Suzuki says: "I feel like many people only learn from their mistakes. So what I can suggest is probably show them the [past] cases" of what type of mistakes have happened and how they have been resolved.

On StartUp Lady, a female entrepreneur community, Ms. Suzuki explains: "I think showing that there is a community where [many] international females can get together to encourage each other [will] support younger generations. I feel like a lot of young people are very motivated to do something, but there's not much [of a] safe community or the community that's maybe open to younger generations at this moment." StartUp Lady seeks to meet such needs of young entrepreneurs. Another of Ms. Suzuki's dream is to better the education in Japan, which StartUp Lady seeks to do by providing an educational program for female entrepreneurs called 60 days Start Up Program Challenge where they take classes for 60 days and eventually present their business ideas. Currently, the community has grown to around 1500 members, mostly spreading by word of mouth and some media exposure.

On leading in Japan, Ms. Suzuki advises to maintain open communication in order to build trust. She also advises new incoming leaders to look for communities to join in order to gain from other people's expertise and experiences. Lastly, Ms. Suzuki explains the importance of not just studying businesses in Japan but foreign businesses who have already started something within the same field to gain insight.

Seth Sulkin takes us through his journey in Japan from working as a journalist to a civil servant to becoming the leader of three organizations - Pacific Air Capital, Pacific Hotels, and most recently, Food-e. Mr. Sulkin first arrived in Japan in 1987 while working for Wall Street Journal and experienced the economic bubble which he recalls as "an incredible time living in Tokyo [and] a rare experience that only happens every 1000 years." Having worked as a journalist in New York, London and Tokyo, Mr. Sulkin decided to change his career path and enrolled in graduate school at Stanford University. There, he studied Japanese political economy, specifically on how Japan uses aid, trade and investment to promote economic development in Southeast Asia. After graduation, he worked for Japan Development Institute to build infrastructures all over the word including Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Russia and Poland as a Project Manager. Mr. Sulkin then worked for the Clinton Administration working on defence policy related to Japan. Mr. Sulkin decided that working in business and being his own boss was a better fit and started building his own development company, first based in the US with a focus on opening department stores and shopping centres in Japan.

In Japan, Mr. Sulkin started with a team of 10-15 people working with large Japanese partners who wanted to build US style shopping centres. He first developed his network based on the relationships he had established while being in Japan for nearly 10 years. Mr. Sulkin continued to expand his network through introductions, which increased his credibility and ability to build trusting business partnerships. Mr. Sulkin believes that as a small organization, his company was able to bring the overseas real estate expertise the Japanese companies needed at that time, which would have been difficult for larger corporations to provide. He adds: "there aren't that many Japanese who can easily fit into the business world in the US [and] easily send people overseas, figure out [and] learn what they need to and bring that technology back to Japan."

On hiring his staff, Mr. Sulkin says he always finds quirky talented people by selling them on the vision of his company as well as providing good work life balance with a competitive salary. He says the advantage of being a foreign company is that he is able to hire people who do not fit the traditional Japanese environment or are not given equal opportunities, such as women. Mr. Sulkin has been successful in hiring good managers and leaves the management of the staff to them, as he does not micromanage and instead focuses on key issues where he can add most value. In order to maintain high accountability and trust, Mr. Sulkin follows a ringi system to a certain extent to enable him to delegate day to day decision making to other. Mr. Sulkin also emphasizes the importance of horenso - report, communication and consulting. He explains to his new staff that maintaining an open communication style is critical and this means admitting mistakes honestly before it gets out of control.

To maintain high engagement, Mr. Sulkin is in constant communication with various offices in-person, over the phone and online. He has come to realize during his leadership career that his staff appreciate a good work life balance and freedom at work as well as in their personal lives. Mr. Sulkin encourages people to take time off as well, as he believes this increases work engagement and the well-being of his team. Additionally, during the global financial crises, the 2011 Earthquake and now COVID, Mr. Sulkin has never laid any of his staff off, which is his way of maintaining trust and engagement.

When speaking to many hotel and restaurant owners, Mr. Sulkin discovered they were hesitant to join the online delivery service business because they were not satisfied with the cost and quality of the service. In order to meet these demands, Mr. Sulkin has started a new gourmet restaurant delivery app company called Food-e. With many restaurants struggling to keep their business afloat, Mr. Sulkin has had over 90% prospective restaurants join his delivery service which promises professional delivery of gourmet meals through an app.

On leading in Japan, Mr. Sulkin thinks it is important for international leaders to speak out and express their opinions with suggestions on improvements.

On his advice to newcomers, Mr. Sulkin advises to study about Japanese business as much as possible, and if on a short assignment, to hire a good translator and assistant who understands the Japanese business culture. Moreover, he advises to meet people both during one's personal and professional time. Lastly, he advises to have an open dialogue with one's team and specifically ask for their ideas. Mr. Sulkin says: "[in doing so] I think you'll have a much richer experience and you'll learn a lot more and you'll contribute much more [to Japan]."

Jim Weisser shares his leadership journey in the Japanese IT sector after arriving in Japan to initially teach English to becoming a leader of many internet businesses since the mid-90s. After realizing his IT skills were in high demand in Japan during the mid-90s pre-internet era, he began developing further expertise in the area by working for an internet service provider and then working for Enron to help establish their broadband business. From 2000 to 2006, Mr. Weisser founded three companies. The third company he established, PBXL KK was an SaaS based company focused on cloud calling. The company was acquired by BroadSoft in November 2015, which was later acquired by Cisco. Mr. Weisser is currently the CEO & co-founder of SignTime, an electronic contract service provider.

At SignTime Mr. Weisser aims to make the contract process in Japan much more manageable for companies with the use of technology. They have taken on a Silicon Valley style agile work process while implementing Japanese level of quality control insurance. He finds that his team members are surprised by his company's culture where mistakes are taken as a lesson to make future improvements. SignTime has landed successful deals with Japanese multinational corporations by promoting their fast-paced responsiveness in which they provide same day responses to compete against larger companies.

As a young leader starting from his early to late 30s, Mr. Weisser recalls the mistakes he had made and the valuable lessons learned from them. He recalls: "I didn't listen very well…and [being educated] in an engineering environment…I have no problems [with] someone saying, Jim, you're an idiot. This is why…And it took me a long time to realize most people were very uncomfortable in that kind of an environment."

From past experiences and mistakes, Mr. Weisser has learned to value diverse experiences and opinions. He is mindful of holding conversations with his team, asking questions and laying the groundwork by getting external input instead of running solely with his ideas. Mr. Weisser values establishing interpersonal relationships with his staff and identifying people's passion and interests to motivate them and understand how they want to be treated. In learning more about his team, he says he is able to better understand his customers as well. Mr. Weisser also admits his mistakes publicly which he finds actually builds trust with his Japanese employees. He is also careful on not micromanaging and mainly focuses on communicating the vision of the company and other leadership components such as financial operations, but delegates the rest to his team.

To newcomers in Japan, Mr. Weisser advises to be a great listener and constantly share information to the point of overcommunicating. Secondly, he advises to hire people based on what they have achieved rather than putting too much emphasis on their English language skills. Thirdly, he advises to give people a sense of ownership when trying to make a change to make the process more productive and engaging. He notes: "If you can show that you're an effective advocate for the people here to headquarters, then you end up being a hero locally…having other people pushing the rock with you makes it a lot easier."

Frank Foley, founder of the Next Big Thing and former Managing Director of HarperCollins Japan, provides a detailed account of working inside Japan's publishing and media industry through his experience with multinational corporations including HarperCollins and News Corporation. Mr. Foley first got his start as a publishing officer at the Australia Japan Research Centre which led him to land a job at the publishing company HarperCollins Japan. This then led Mr. Foley to work for News Corporation, an American multinational mass media company owned by Rupert Murdoch. At News Corporation, Mr. Foley liaised between the media company and its Japanese partners using his language skills and knowledge of Japanese culture. Mr. Foley was involved in many start-up projects investing in satellite television through News Corporation, sitting in on meetings involving Mr. Murdoch, Soft Bank founder Son Masayoshi and executives of Fuji TV.

Working as a country manager for News Broadcasting Japan (later Fox International Channels), Mr. Foley led a team of 40 people after being in charge of massive downsizing. In addition to the task of downsizing which Mr. Foley recalls as a "traumatic experience," he found it challenging to ensure his employees were highly engaged and working strategically towards a common goal. Being a liaison between head office and Japan was another major challenge to bridge the cultural differences between various parties. When leading the downsizing operation, Mr. Foley learned the importance of communicating the "why" behind the restructuring to maintain transparency and trust with his remaining team members, as well as investing in a strong HR department with empathetic, approachable people.

After working in News Corporation for close to 20 years, Mr. Foley discovered he was not a "TV person" but inclined more towards business development and brand management. He then moved on to HIT Entertainment to work on brand business development for Thomas the Tank Engine. On his fascination with branding, Mr. Foley explains: "I realized [what] I really liked about those brands was…the brand itself, not TV specifically, but about the brand and how it fitted with the lifestyle of Japanese people, and you can see the possibilities that go way beyond the actual business that you're in. So I…was very interested in moving from a specific operational business [to one], where you're really working with the brand and trying to figure out what the best strategy for the entire brand is…And Thomas the Tank Engine was that….it's like sky is the limit."

In addition to Thomas, Mr. Foley also worked for Guinness World Records owned by HIT Entertainment. There, Mr. Foley had the challenge of coming up with a new business model for the product as the brand was just entering the Japanese market. Mr. Foley then became interested in building his own business and began providing brand consulting for various consumer products, which led him to become Executive Managing Director at Universal Music's subsidiary company, Bravado where he helped successfully recruited another executive to turn the business around.

Mr. Foley then moved back to HarperCollins as the Managing Director leading the distribution of English language books in Japan, such as Harlequin novels and manga in partnership with Softbank. Under his leadership, Mr. Foley sought to have the business operate on a brand driven strategy that focused on growth and the needs of the market rather than following a set template. For example, Mr. Foley used HarperCollins' and his personal global connections to land a publishing deal with soccer player Maya Yoshida to publish his autobiography in English and Japanese. On landing this book deal with a celebrity soccer player, Mr. Foley explains: "if we just went head to head with Shueisha, Kodansha (Japan's top publishing companies), we're not going to get anywhere. We have to think innovatively. We have to think, okay, what can we borrow from our leverage or head office for more international network to allow us to punch above our weight here in Japan."

To create a culture of open communication and high engagement among his employees, Mr. Foley has created opportunities for people to share information and present their ideas. For example, at HarperCollins he has set up a "hall of fame" bulletin board in which different departments would post updated information on what type of projects they are working on. At the end of the month, Mr. Foley would have people from all levels present their projects to the rest of the team to create a sense of ownership and accountability. Mr. Foley also provided equal opportunities for people to work on projects, regardless of their job titles in which an employee in the IT department would be the project lead to publish an Elon Musk book on Tesla. Mr. Foley has also become more mindful of knowing when to step back as he adds: "in more recent years [I've realized it's best to] just get the right people in the job for whatever needs to be done, give them the general direction, the strategy, and check back every once in a while. But for the most part get out of the way and let them do their jobs."

On advice to new leaders coming into Japan, Mr. Foley advises to hire a strong HR person as he experienced firsthand having the right HR person provides security to the company. He also adds to not be afraid of letting people go if that individual is negatively impacting the rest of the team. Secondly, he advises to spend the time to understand Japanese consumers and the local Japanese strategy. Thirdly, he advises on providing equal opportunities for people including women.

Mr. Foley's company, Next Big Thing provides consulting in children's consumer brands and educational properties, including Japan market entry, brand strategy and brand management, character and brand licensing, and Japanese-language publishing. More information can be found on Mr. Foley's LinkedIn page. https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankfoleyjapan/

Claus Eilersen, Senior Vice President of Novo Nordisk, Japan, provides deep insight in leading in the pharmaceutical industry in various countries including the US, Canada and Japan. Mr. Eilersen first entered Novo Nordisk after graduating from business school as a liaison between the headquarters in Denmark and Japan, as well as the US doing business development. He initially lived in the US but in 1995 moved with his family to Japan to become the CFO and eventually became the President of Operation in Canada. In 2005, Mr. Eilersen returned to Japan to step into his current role as Senior Vice President in the Japan office.

Having led in multiple cultures within the same organization, Mr. Eilersen describes doing business deals in Japan as a "complete immersion in a different culture" with a "very steep learning curve." To build trust amongst his team, Mr. Eilersen held one-on-one meetings with his direct reports and set ambitious targets while establishing the company's own distribution system. By having a clear common goal, Mr. Eilersen believes this strengthen the motivation and engagement of his employees. Additionally, in order to establish mutual respect, Mr. Eilersen tried to see things from his employees and customers perspective. For example, by making numerous visits to clients across the country, Mr. Eilersen gained a clearer understanding of what particular question or service is expected from a particular customer and was able to provide a better solution. By talking to customers Mr. Eilersen saw first hand the meticulousness of Japanese consumers, who will only accept the exact number of products or else doubt the brand's quality and lose trust. Having worked in North America where defect products were accepted if for a discount, Mr. Eilersen calls this an important lesson learned. Under Mr. Eilersen's leadership, Novo Nordsik of Japan came up with with innovation by creating a centre of excellence for quality to detect early signs of quality issues, which was implemented globally. Mr. Eilersen believes that these consistent and sincere effort to understand how business is done in Japan is appreciated and over time forms trust.

To encourage people to stay accountable with high engagement, Mr. Eilersen delegates responsibility to staff with a clear message telling them this is their responsibility and they need to make their own decisions. Mr. Eilersen takes a bottom-up approach to gain input and feedback from people in many layers of the organization to create a project plan with high team engagement. The company also encourages people to come up with ideas on how to make the business better and gives out rewards for the best ones in order to create a culture for people to think in terms of improvement on a daily basis. To further stimulate innovation, Novo Nordisk forms project teams with a specific focus to solve a particular problem with leadership monitoring the execution. From such projects, Mr. Eilersen noticed people becoming more excited and productive, coming up with proposals that improved work efficiency by 15%. Additionally, Mr. Eilersen emphasizes the importance of having some degree of tolerance for mistakes and use them as a learning opportunity instead of blaming an individual.

Mr. Eilersen also realizes that rather than rewarding people individually, team rewards were more effective in boosting morale as Mr. Eilersen believes that for his Japanese employees, the "sense of belonging to a team is very strong and important." Moreover, Mr. Eilersen has come to think the ultimate driver of engagement for his Japanese team comes from the satisfaction of doing a good job for a good cause and having the haraochi, the gut feeling that this is the right thing to do. Mr. Eilersen believes that this haraochi can be achieved through various discussions from several different perspectives of the organization.

To newcomers of Japan, Mr. Eilersen advises to dive in and immerse oneself completely in the culture and see things with one's own eyes on how business is done in Japan. He recalls from his first real experience in Japan, he spent much time observing how people interacted to understand the culture and way of communication. Mr. Eilersen also advises to stay approachable and spend time with your employees and customers through nomunication. Lastly, Mr. Eilersen advises leaders coming into Japan to form allies within the company and make improvements by following the Japanese guidelines of how things are done, instead of having a "I can fix this" mentality.

Wolfgang Angyal, President of Riedel Japan, originally grew up in Austria and came to Japan in 1985 as an Austrian representative in restaurant service sector of the 28th WorldSkills Competition and won first place. He credits this win to the trust he had of his supporting team who were all Japanese. Mr. Angyal has also been practicing Judo from a young age where he developed a deep respect and fascination for Japanese culture.

After working in the education sector as an instructor in Japan, Mr. Angyal became interested in working for Riedel as he was familiar with the brand due to his experience in the hospitality industry in Austria. Through persistency, Mr. Angyal met with Georg Riedel, the owner of Riedel, and secured a business development role for a subsidiary company. There, he was able to apply the skills he had gained working in hospitality and event management to promote Riedel products to Japanese restaurants and companies.

Staying true to the Riedel family motto of "stoke the fire, don't save the ashes," Mr. Angyal persistently approached restaurants to promote Riedel. Fortunately, this was the 80s economic boom time in Japan, and Mr. Angyal used his networks to successfully schedule appointments to meet restaurant owners in person. "I think a lot of them actually bought their first [wine] glasses, more out of pity, [thinking] this guy's sweating with this case, coming to the restaurant and waiting for two hours. Or some of them maybe were admiring the effort." Mr. Angyal worked to establish the brand within companies to build relationships with large scale distributions.

Mr. Angyal states the main challenge for him at the time was introducing wine culture to those who were not familiar with drinking wine on a daily basis. Therefore, Mr. Angyal actively promoted the product by holding tasting sessions where people got to experience drinking wine from Riedel glasses. "If you taste the difference, it's experiential. If you taste the difference between [a Riedel glass] and another glass of drinking the same beverage, you will never forget it."

Mr. Angyal then moved his base to Australia where he worked from Riedel's Sydney office as the Vice President of Asia Pacific, Latin America and Southern Hemisphere. After a brief consideration of moving to China, Mr. Angyal was persuaded by an old friend to move back to Japan in 2000 where he has been since then, working as the President & CEO of Riedel Japan.

By 2000, Riedel Japan had become an independent operation and Mr. Angyal started to build his team through referrals to recruit staff. As a leader, Mr. Angyal found challenges in driving the operation side of the organization and establishing a shared vision while going through an acquisition. In order to maintain employee engagement during the merger, Mr. Angyal organized workshops, off-site meetings and external coaching. Additionally, Mr. Angyal worked to get to know his staff through open communication and personality tests. By better understanding his staff, Mr. Angyal adjusted his communication style and worked to form a more trusting relationship. Mr. Angyal notes that as a foreign leader, he is mindful of being consistent with his decision-making and tries to be predictable with his actions. He claims that constantly asking the questions "How do they see us and what do they expect from us?" is key to leading in Japan as a foreigner.

Additionally, Mr. Angyal values open communication and provides equal opportunities for his staff to be heard even if this means rejecting his own ideas in public. Mr. Angyal also seeks to bring different perspectives and ideas from his global networks and to his Japanese team in order to provide the "right fuel for their sparks." He also has his immediate reports give him a 360 degree performance review to continue developing his leadership abilities and maintain transparency.

Riedel Japan has come up with innovation such as creating sake glasses, an idea that came out of a tasting workshop from a customer. Currently, the Japan office has independently come up with two different sake glasses - the Daiginjo glasses and Junmai glasses - by working with hundreds of brewers and testing in multiple workshops to come up with the perfect product.

For newcomers in Japan, Mr. Angyal advises to be patient and mindful of one's actions as well as words. He recommends having small wins first and then building on that to quickly gain trust and credibility. Lastly, he advises to be authentic and to be yourself to be able to survive leading in Japan in the long term.

Loic Rethore, North Asia President of Dyson, shares his diverse background working in the consumer, luxury and premium goods industry across multiple countries including Japan, Australia, Korea and Hong Kong. Mr. Rethore originally developed a fascination with Japan after working as an intern in the Japan branch of L'Oreal. In order to stay in Japan, Mr. Rethore started working at LVMH Perfumes & Cosmetics, working for Givenchy as the North Asia Area Manager. He has then worked in Unilever as General Manager of the Asia Pacific region and Nespresso as Head of the Oceania region before coming into his current role at Dyson.

During his first few years as a leader, Mr. Rethore's biggest challenge was building credibility and trust amongst stakeholders and his staff. In order to overcome this, Mr. Rethore tried to get to know people beyond just formal business meetings. He actively invited his team on lunches and held one-on-one conversations to establish a trusting relationship. Mr. Rethore also notes the importance of body language and introspection to overcome language and culture barriers. Working with a diverse group, Mr. Rethore provided insight on the different working style and relationship building between Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. For example, he notes that when doing business in Korea for Dyson, they are quick to buy the newest technology. On the other hand, in Japan, people are interested in high-tech brands but are more cautious and want to find out if the product suits their needs. When comparing Japan with other countries he's worked in Mr. Rethore says: "I think the relationship to speed, but also the relationship to technology is [different]."

Mr. Rethore's experience in Japan helped him develop skills that benefited him when leading in other countries. The experience gave him ability to be more inquisitive and talk to people in stores to gain a better understanding of consumers and the market. When coming back from Hong Kong to Japan during his time at Unilever, Mr. Rethore also discovered his leadership ability had grown as he had worked with staff and stakeholders from all over the world and was able to relate to a diverse group of people. In addition, he felt recognized as people understood he was adding value by bringing in emerging distributors and exporters in premium brands. Mr. Rethore also encouraged his team to question ideas and think outside of the box to increase the engagement level and overall performance.

When becoming the lead of Nespresso Japan, Mr. Rethore worked to bridge the gap between head office and Japanese leadership to find an agreed strategy. In order to gain trust from the Japanese side, he listened carefully to his team including the staff in the retail stores through one-on-one discussions and casual conversations. Furthermore, Mr. Rethore held workshops on organizational issues and in doing so, was able to form strategies in a collaborative way. He was also able to build new connections between his team and external organization as well, which helped expand the company's network. As a result, during his time at Nespresso, Mr. Rethore was able to oversee the opening of the flagship Nespresso store in Omotesando, move Nespresso products to the more visible depachika (underground level of Department stores) and launched popular original products like combining champagne fruits with Nespresso Iced Coffee.

Working at Dyson, Mr. Rethore has built trust based on his previous leadership experience of open communication and collaboration as well as being a role model for others. In order for people to stay connected, Dyson has formed several virtual community groups similar to a Facebook group including a reading, cooking, and animal loving group. Dyson also hosts virtual café briefings which were held every week during the height of the COVID-19 crisis, and is still ongoing now. This briefing serves as the hub for information sharing and community building.

To newcomers arriving in Japan to lead, Mr. Rethore advises to "find that balance between pushing too much and pushing not enough. Managing change in a country like Japan, that's [going to] move slowly, sometimes requires a lot of persistence and energy." He adds: "really work with [your team] and consider it as a journey."