Tokyo Alumni Podcast

Episode 17: Benjamin Simon (ASIJ 2006)

Precious Metals Trader

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Benjamin explains to Nick his journey as a TCK, navigating through both French and American schools, and ultimately choosing to graduate through the American system after attending ASIJ and Shanghai American School.

The two discuss and reminisce how global the experience was attending an international school, as Nick pointed out Benjamins group of friends alone was a mini-EU with a student from Bulgaria, another from Sweden, an Italian, and Benjamin (French).

Benjamin shares with Nick stories of how his background of being a "TCK" (Third Culture Kid), had helped him throughout his career course, and has helped him work in the various multi-cultural teams he has served in for the various transnational corporations he has worked for. Benjamin also explains how the way he entered the banking industry and trading industry was not the standard way one would go from college to work, and instead, he was able to specifically leverage his background a multicultural TCK to help him get positions in banks, which eventually helped him land the work he pursues today.

Benjamin explains to Nick the life of a precious metals trader, and how the market has been affected by the recent outbreak of COVID-19. He provides Nick with pointers for beginner investors, and what to be careful about when it comes to investment for products such as gold, silver, and platinum. The two also touch upon the topic of bitcoin in the market, and the often drawn parallel of bitcoin and gold.

Nick asks Benjamin about whether the new platforms for trading has increased the level of day trading, and Benjamin agrees that it has, and shares an anecdote from his experience on a taxi in Shanghai that illustrates this point.

Benjamin Simon

Precious Metals Trader

Benjamin graduated HEC Montreal in 2010 with a Bachelor in Business Administration. He started his career at ANZ Bank, working as a front office assistant for the markets division. After a year, he managed to move to a front office role as a junior trader on the Precious Metals desk. He subsequently moved to their London office where he became responsible for their forwards business. He has now moved to the buy-side and is working for KOCH Supply and Trading as a prop precious metals trader.

To kick start his professional career Benjamin was able to leverage on the opportunities of growing up as a TCK, not only did it open his doors at the start of his career but it also enabled him to be flexible and be a natural fit within multicultural teams.

Benjamin has been living in London since 2012 and now enjoys discovering the UK as well as new European cities for holidays.

Episode 15: Matt Jay (ASIJ 1999-2004)

Matt begins the podcast explaining his shirt, designed by "That Year" his label, and how his label came to be, and what the label means to him and how it is a symbol that goes beyond its title as a clothing label.

The two discuss how Asian representation in popular culture has changed the past few decades, and how that has affected their personal perspectives in regards to Asians in the entertainment/art industries.

Matt explains to Nick the ins and outs of Art school, and the type of career paths one could take upon graduating from art-specific colleges.

Matt explains to Nick how his project "End of Summer" came to fruition, and how the program connects contemporary artists from Tokyo and Portland.

Matt originally majored in film, but currently pursues an area of art more on the management side. He explains to Nick how although he no longer pursues directing itself, how there is a single thread, of art and culture, which connect from his time as a young film director as a teen to the curator and art organizer he is today. Matt also explains how his formative years in Tokyo, and at ASIJ molded much of the person he would become today.

Matt Jay (ASIJ 1999-2004) Curator, Arts Organizer​

Matt Jay is the Founder and Director of End of Summer, a cross-cultural art program dedicated to exploring and supporting contemporary art from Japan. End of Summer exists to build a dialogue between the U.S., specifically the region of the Pacific Northwest, and Japan through contemporary art. Through this entry point, the program aims to engage in a larger exploration of Japanese art in the era of global artistic practice, as well as the continual reconsideration of notions of East and West, center and periphery.

He also co-runs THAT YEAR, an independent clothing label and creative studio inspired by the vernacular aesthetics of Tokyo and Seoul, and the echoes of personal memory. THAT YEAR develops products, events, physical and digital media, as well as cultural insight, strategy, and creative direction.

Matt attended School of Visual Arts in New York, receiving his BFA in 2011. He was born in New York, and raised between Portland, Oregon and Tokyo, Japan.

Episode 14 Monica Murray (ASIJ 2011) Touring Photographer ​ 

Monica describes to Nick what it was like being in Japan, and at ASIJ during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.  Monica explains to Nick how she had a "culture shock" when moving back to the USA (Michigan), and how life now in "the South", Nashville, was a major adjustment in comparison to life in Japan.  Monica speaks to Nick what type of person she thinks would thrive in the music industry, and addresses the issue of misogyny and sexism in the entertainment industry.  Through having a support role for the channel, GemsOnVHS, she learned how a support role can contribute just as much as the main role, and Monica explains how if one is passionate about art, they can contribute to art not necessarily as an artist, but as an individual who supports the art creating process.   Nick asks Monica how the revenue system works for Youtube, and Monica explains to him how COVID-19 has affected ad revenue in the industry. Nick also inquires about how COVID-19 has affected the music industry in general, and Monica explains to him what she has seen first hand in regard to the music scene in Nashville, Tennessee.    

Monica Murray (ASIJ 2011)

Episode 13

Episode 12

Episode 12

Episode 11:  Yoshi Suzuki (Nishimachi 2001, ASIJ 2005) Strategist, Consultant, and Voice Actor 

Yoshi explains to Nick the fundamental differences between the pursuit of a Ph.D. in the natural sciences in comparison to the social sciences, and how these differences led towards his perspective that a Ph.D. in social sciences is one not worth pursuing. The two discuss the complexities of social science itself as an endeavor, and how by nature its designs are often not founded on enough theory.  Yoshi finds the ecosystem of social sciences being sustainable through tuition alone limiting, and much of the research was "research for the sake of research", unlike other fields that were making immediate differences based on their research results.   

The two discuss what it means to be a "consultant" and how the term itself is very vague, and often depends on the type of consultation and whether not the individual is staffed by the client or by the consulting company.  Yoshi explains to Nick about the company he works for, and what type of person they are looking to hire as they recruit talent for their newly opening Tokyo office.  The two towards the end briefly discuss how the tech sector and the United States have been trailblazers in regards to changing "professional clothing", and has shifted the focus from what you wear to what you accomplish, productivity At the end of the conversation, Yoshi shares with Nick his experience of doing kabuki in Nishimachi igniting his passion for theater, and how that led towards professional gigs in high school and college, and the today (part-time).    

From Yoshi: By the way, WE ARE HIRING in Tokyo! ​If you are a technical architect, Scrum Master, Product Manager, business/operations consultant, or change management consultant who is interested in a new challenge, reach out to me on LinkedIn!  ​

Yoshi Suzuki (EP #11)

Upon graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, Yoshi started his career in digital advertising at a small agency in Tokyo. He then returned to Minnesota to start a Masters degree in Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and was later admitted to its Ph.D. program. Upon successfully completing the preliminary written and oral examinations, he left the program to return to the industry. After various strategy roles in advertising agencies, digital agencies, and client-side settings, he joined Slalom, a modern consulting firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Seattle, Slalom has grown to over 8,000 employees and one of Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For. After spending three years leading teams and helping clients in customer engagement, agile transformation, and product innovation projects, he took a new role in June 2019 to help launch and establish Slalom’s newest global market in Tokyo. In his free time, he advises startups and freelances as a translator and voiceover talent.  From Yoshi: 

Slalom Home page: https://www.slalom.com/home Yoshi's 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bunguman/  

Episode 10 Aya Porte (ASIJ 2008) Occupational Therapy

Aya Porte

Episode 9 Tom Eldridge  

Tom explains why he chose to go the route of HR as a career path, and why his interest in people and business perfectly meshed in the world of recruitment and HR.  Tom explains the differences in how COVID-19 has affected the markets in the US vs Japan vs the UK. He also elaborates in regards to the differences one should consider when applying to jobs in each of these three nations and how their cultural differences can affect the recruitment process, and how the recent surge in start-ups in Tokyo have altered the landscape of hiring in Japan.  Tom provides Nick with some pointers in regards to matters such as how to write a CV, how to interview online, and how to adapt to the new circumstances in regards to recruitment for jobs in the post-COVID-19 era.  Tom explains common myths in regards to the recruitment process for any given job, especially in regard to CV writing.   Nick has always been puzzled about whether or not his interest in football should be included in his CV. Tom explains why this is a tricky part of the CV writing and​ evaluation process.  

Tom Eldridge 

St. Mary's International School (2005)  

Upon graduating from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada, Tom spent a 5-month stint in Zambia Africa, volunteering building houses with Habitat for Humanity and building learning curriculums for local schools. Following this experience, Tom moved back to Japan to learn Japanese in a language school for a year, and sought out an internship at PricewaterhouseCoopers Japan in Human Resources. It is during this experience that his love for all things HR developed, he cycled through different HR teams, namely, Learning & Development, Global Mobility, Compensation to name a few. Fast forwarding a bit more, Tom found himself in the world of Recruiting, due to his interest in people problem-solving.  He works as a Senior Talent Acquisition professional at Cisco Systems. He has spent 3 years with Cisco in London, UK, and has been back with the company in Tokyo for just over a year now. Tom enjoys working through talent-related challenges.  Timestamps

Episode 4 Sarah Whitten

Sarah shares with Nick the obstacles of being a young female professional in the male-dominated world of finance.  The two discuss how maternity leave varies from country to country, and how the Nordic model and European models and differ, and how these models may or may not serve as model examples of equitable treatment of woman in the USA where there are 0 days of mandated maternity leave.  Sarah explains why she left New York City for South Africa, and why "emerging markets" played a major role when she was deciding her destination after New York.  Sarah explains to Nick the craziness she had to endure having to give birth at a hospital during peak COVID-19 season in South Africa, and how the nation has dealt relatively successfully with the disease thus far.   

Sarah Whitten (ASIJ 05) ​

Upon graduating from Northwestern University, Sarah moved to New York City for a role in the International Graduate program at Standard Chartered Bank, a 2-year program rotating in various divisions and periodic global off-sites recruits from across the world, allowing analysts to create a network spanning Hong Kong to Dubai to Nigeria.   Following the program she remained in New York as an Associate in the Debt Capital Markets team (responsible for bond issuances for large corporates). Sarah then moved to South Africa with Standard Chartered and is currently a Global Account Manager, managing a portfolio of multinational corporates and serving as the main point of contact for CEOs, CFOs, and Treasurers for banking requirements.   Sarah is also passionate about embedding Diversity and Inclusion initiatives into the DNA of corporate life and serves the Chairwoman for the Diversity and Inclusion Council for the bank in South Africa.  Timestamps

Disclaimer *Although Nathan paints a negative picture of China there are others who think the opposite, and Nathans views do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast or host.  

Episode 8 Nathan Baker (ASIJ 2004)

Nathan speaks to Nick about his close to two decades in China, and how living there as an expatriate has transformed greatly in the past two decades.   Nathan explains how his intrigue with China started with a high school trip in 2001 to China, and how learning Chinese in University helped him adapt to living in China in the late 2000s.  Nathan explains how life in China under the rule of Hu Jintao was very different in comparison to life in China under Xi Jinping, and why many expatriates are now moving out of China due to recent anti-foreigner sentiment.  

Nathan Baker 

He graduated ASIJ in 2004, now working in advertising in China. He’s currently a Group Account Director for We Are Social in the North Asia region — taking Asia Pacific-based brands global on social media & digital while also helping multinational corporations navigate social & digital in China. ​Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, he has not been able to return to China now for over five months and will be on the podcast ZOOMing in from Maryland, USA.