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.

Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan is a business podcast hosted by Dr. Greg Story, with 325 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Dr. Greg Story hosts Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan, a business show with 325 episodes published.

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

  293 Doru Tasca - President and Representative Director, ZF Group Japan

  Sep 4, 20261h 8m

  "The very first thing that you have to do as a leader in Japan is to make yourself a team member." "You have to show them that you're here because you want to lead Japan, not because you want to lead." "Don't ask anyone to do anything you wouldn't do yourself." "You have to get to a level where you can show both knowledge and humility." "Once you show your people a path... they will follow you." Doru Tasca is President and Representative Director of ZF Group in Japan, combining more than three decades of life in Japan with extensive leadership experience in the automotive industry. Born and raised in Romania, Tasca came to Japan at eighteen after winning a Japanese government Monbusho scholarship. He spent his first year studying Japanese at Osaka University of Foreign Studies before completing his university education in Japan. That early immersion gave him not only fluency in Japanese but also a deep familiarity with the cultural assumptions underpinning Japanese business. After initially teaching English, Tasca entered the automotive industry in 2005 with Japanese company Witech in Hiroshima, beginning in R&D before moving into sales and programme management. He subsequently joined Visteon and later Continental, where he worked extensively in automated and assisted driving technologies including cameras, radar and lidar. Tasca joined ZF in 2020 as Key Account Executive for Toyota. His responsibilities expanded until he became Head of Sales for ZF Japan at the beginning of 2025 and subsequently President and Representative Director, while retaining his sales leadership responsibilities. His career has been shaped by his ability to operate comfortably between Japanese and Western business cultures. Rather than treating Japan as a temporary overseas assignment, Tasca describes Japan as his home and believes effective foreign leadership requires understanding the language, culture, customers and people from the inside. Narrative Summary Leading successfully in Japan requires much more than importing global management practices and expecting local employees to adapt. For Doru Tasca, President and Representative Director of ZF Group Japan, effective leadership begins with becoming part of the team. Tasca's perspective comes from an unusual career. Arriving from Romania at eighteen on a Japanese government scholarship, he learned Japanese, studied in Japan and eventually built his entire professional career there. His first automotive role was inside a traditional Japanese company, where he experienced Japanese corporate life from the bottom upwards before moving into multinational organisations including Visteon, Continental and ZF. That background taught him an important lesson: Western leadership habits cannot simply be transplanted into Japan. Consensus building and nemawashi matter. Leaders must understand how decisions are developed and gain acceptance rather than relying solely on positional authority. Credibility also comes from being willing to do the work. Tasca believes leaders initially need to get their hands dirty so they understand what their teams actually do. Delegation should come later and must be explained carefully. Employees need to understand that work is being delegated because the leader trusts them and wants them to grow, not because the boss simply wants to unload unwanted tasks. This philosophy extends to decision-making. Tasca asks his management team to investigate problems, consult their teams, develop alternatives and return with a recommendation. If he accepts their recommendation, responsibility is shared. If he overrides it, he takes responsibility himself. This creates psychological safety around decisions while still encouraging ownership. Trust is another recurring theme. Tasca sees reputation as one of the most valuable assets anyone possesses in Japanese business. Trust takes considerable time to build and can be destroyed remarkably quickly. Leaders therefore need to demonstrate reliability through behaviour. Tasca attends meetings alongside his people, joins them when customer problems occur and makes himself visible throughout the organisation. Employees must see that their leader works with them rather than merely issuing instructions. He also emphasises accessibility. As president, he deliberately walks around the office and speaks with employees, even when the interaction lasts only thirty seconds. Japanese employees can be reluctant to approach senior leaders with problems, making it important for leaders themselves to reduce the psychological distance. For foreign executives, Tasca's advice is particularly clear: learn Japanese. Language is not simply a communication tool. It signals commitment and allows leaders to understand nuances that disappear when Japanese employees are required to operate entirely in English. Ultimately, Tasca defines leadership through example, humility and development. Leaders should never ask others to do something they would not do themselves. They must recognise that specialists around them will often know far more than they do and combine sufficient knowledge with the humility to listen. Most importantly, leaders must show people a path forward. When employees understand how today's difficult assignment contributes to tomorrow's growth, leadership becomes more than authority. It gives people a reason to follow. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan depends heavily on becoming accepted as part of the team rather than simply asserting hierarchical authority. Tasca argues that foreign leaders must demonstrate that they understand Japanese business behaviour, including consensus building and nemawashi. This requires hands-on involvement. Employees need to see that their leader understands their work and is prepared to share the burden. Only after establishing that credibility can delegation become genuinely effective. Japanese decision-making also places considerable importance on collective acceptance. Tasca asks managers to investigate issues with their teams, identify alternatives and recommend a solution. When he agrees, responsibility becomes shared. When he rejects their recommendation and chooses another direction, he deliberately assumes responsibility for that decision. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives can struggle when they arrive believing successful leadership practices elsewhere will automatically work in Japan. Tasca warns against behaving like a temporary expatriate who has come to collect several years of international experience before moving to another assignment. Japanese employees observe whether a foreign executive is genuinely committed to Japan. Leaders who remain isolated from employees, customers, language and everyday Japanese society can struggle to build the credibility required to lead effectively. Tasca's distinction is powerful: executives need to demonstrate that they came because they want to lead Japan, not simply because they want to be leaders. Is Japan truly risk-averse? The interview presents a more nuanced picture than simply describing Japanese organisations as risk-averse. Tasca's experience in the automotive sector shows companies managing uncertainty through relationships, consensus and long-term cooperation. Japanese automotive competitors may cooperate when earthquakes or other disruptions threaten production. Customers also deliberately bring competing suppliers together, creating relationships that may eventually enable cooperation when supply-chain problems emerge. Rather than seeing this purely as risk avoidance, it can be understood as strategic uncertainty management. Long-term relationships provide resilience when unexpected problems arise. What leadership style actually works? Tasca advocates visible, participative and accountable leadership. Leaders need to work alongside employees, understand their jobs and demonstrate that delegation is designed to develop people rather than dump work onto them. They also need to listen to criticism. Tasca argues that a person who cannot accept constructive criticism has no business being a leader and is merely someone who possesses power. Accessibility matters as well. Tasca makes daily rounds through the office and speaks with employees because people must feel comfortable approaching leadership with problems. The resulting style combines knowledge with humility. Leaders do not need to be the greatest technical expert in the room. They need enough understanding to evaluate expert advice, make decisions and empower specialists to perform. How can technology help? Technology is central to ZF's business, but Tasca's leadership lessons emphasise that technology does not eliminate the human component of management. ZF operates across advanced automotive technologies including automated driving, cameras, high-performance computing, braking, steering, suspension and transmissions. The company invests heavily in research and development and must persuade customers to adopt technologies that can initially be expensive. Yet commercial success ultimately rests on trust. Customers need confidence that the supplier will deliver reliably over decades. Technology may create the opportunity, but relationships, reputation and execution determine whether customers choose that organisation when the next technology arrives. Does language proficiency matter? For Tasca, the answer is unequivocally yes. His advice to a newly appointed foreign president is: learn Japanese immediately. Japanese employees may become more restricted when forced to communicate entirely in English, and important nuances can disappear. At ZF Japan, Tasca is the only foreigner and normal staff meetings are conducted in Japanese. He believes speaking Japanese helps employees communicate naturally and demonstrates that the foreign leader is making a genuine effort to understand the country. Language proficiency therefore contributes directly to trust, communication and leadership effectiveness. What's the ultimate leadership lesson? Tasca's leadership philosophy can be condensed into a simple principle: do not ask anyone to do something you would not do yourself. Leadership also requires humility. There will always be people who possess deeper technical knowledge than the leader. The leader's role is to listen, understand enough to make sound decisions and trust capable people with responsibilities that help them develop. Employees also need to see where they are going. Tasca believes leaders must show people a career path and explain how difficult assignments will help them grow. When people can see that their leader shares the burden, listens, accepts responsibility and invests in their development, they will follow — including when circumstances become difficult. 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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  Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan

  292 Frederic Delsaux - Representative Director, PTS Japan

  Aug 28, 20261 hour

  "You can't tell them to stop smoking if you have a cigarette in your mouth." "I think it's all about communication." "You need to expose them, but don't throw them into the lion's cage." "First, learn Japanese." "Trust and communication. You cannot govern by emails or rules. You need to talk. You need to explain." Frederic Delsaux is Representative Director of PTS Japan, a project management and consulting company supporting foreign and domestic organisations with construction, audiovisual, infrastructure and IT projects in Japan, as well as managed services after project completion. His connection with Japan stretches back to his university years in France, where he specialised in the Japanese economy. Attracted by Japan's economic importance and its reputation for automobiles, electronics and manufacturing, he arrived in Japan around the end of 1989 and beginning of the 1990s, just as the bubble economy was beginning to collapse. His career in Japan began far removed from project management. He initially managed a French restaurant, where the necessity of communicating with Japanese customers and colleagues pushed him to learn Japanese. He later joined an import-export trading company before representing a French telecommunications hardware company in Japan. After the local branch manager suddenly departed, Delsaux was offered responsibility for the operation and effectively moved into leadership almost overnight. His telecommunications work brought him into contact with PTS during the early stages of its Japan operation. After seven to eight years with the telecommunications company, he joined PTS, initially in technical sales for telephony, before moving through sales and director-level responsibilities. He has now spent more than two decades with PTS. In April 2020, as COVID-19 was beginning to reshape business globally, the Japanese management team completed a management buyout from the UK parent organisation. PTS Japan became part of a Japanese-owned group while retaining the established PTS brand. Delsaux's career consequently spans technical sales, client management, organisational leadership, business ownership and the challenge of adapting global project-management practices to Japanese business realities. Frederic Delsaux's leadership career in Japan demonstrates how credibility, communication and cultural adaptability can matter more than hierarchy alone. Having lived and worked in Japan since around the beginning of the 1990s, he has experienced the country through the collapse of the bubble economy, the Lehman shock, COVID-19, labour shortages and major changes in Japanese attitudes towards lifetime employment. PTS Japan specialises in project management across construction, audiovisual, infrastructure and IT projects. The business also provides managed services after projects are completed. Following a management buyout in April 2020, the Japanese operation became locally owned, while continuing to use the established PTS brand. Delsaux's route into leadership was unconventional. After studying the Japanese economy in France, he came to Japan and managed a French restaurant. Japanese was essential because the people around him did not speak French or English. He subsequently moved into trading and telecommunications. When a branch manager suddenly departed, he was offered leadership of the Japanese operation almost overnight. Speaking Japanese helped him gain trust among local employees, establishing an early lesson that language proficiency can carry cultural and leadership significance far beyond simple translation. At PTS, credibility came partly from experience and client relationships. Engineers and consultants knew that Delsaux understood the commercial environment and could communicate with decision-makers. His leadership philosophy nevertheless extends beyond expertise. As technology becomes more complex, leaders cannot be the deepest technical expert in every discipline. Instead, managers add value through communication, problem solving, risk reduction and helping technical specialists successfully navigate client relationships. That is particularly important because engineers increasingly need to operate directly in front of customers. Delsaux believes technical professionals should be progressively exposed to these situations rather than simply thrown into them. Supported experience builds confidence until the individual can communicate solutions independently. Trust is equally central. His analogy is memorable: a leader cannot tell employees to stop smoking while holding a cigarette. Leaders need to bring value to conversations with their people. Questions cannot simply be ignored, and employees need access to managers when problems occur. Externally, Delsaux stresses the importance of presenting a unified team to customers. Internal colleagues should not blame one another in front of clients. Trust can be quickly destroyed if different functions appear divided. Japan adds another layer. Consensus, communication and careful explanation matter. International methodologies cannot simply be imported without localisation. Leaders need to understand both the project and the people receiving the message. For executives arriving in Japan, Delsaux's first recommendation is straightforward: learn Japanese. The language also opens a door to understanding the culture. Beyond language, leaders need the right team, careful hiring decisions, regular contact with customers and an appreciation of the institutional knowledge already present inside the organisation. Ultimately, Delsaux reduces leadership to two closely connected concepts: trust and communication. Rules and emails cannot replace dialogue. Leaders need to talk, explain, listen and understand the challenges facing their people. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan requires unusually careful attention to communication, relationships and context. Delsaux's experience suggests that technically correct solutions are not sufficient on their own. International methodologies and global standards still need to be translated into a form that makes sense to Japanese clients and employees. Consensus is important, but the deeper issue is ensuring people understand what is happening and why. PTS therefore places substantial emphasis on sharing project information not merely with the immediate project team but more broadly across the organisation. Leadership also requires sensitivity to the customer relationships that Japanese employees may have spent years developing. What initially appears to an incoming foreign executive as unnecessary resistance may actually reflect employees protecting an important client relationship. Why do global executives struggle? Executives arriving from overseas can assume that practices which work at headquarters should transfer directly to Japan. The danger is judging local structures before understanding why they exist. Delsaux emphasises the importance of having the right team, while the broader discussion highlights the need to investigate why local employees work in a particular way before attempting sweeping changes. Language can compound the problem. An executive who cannot communicate in Japanese may become dependent on whichever employees speak English, regardless of their seniority or depth of business knowledge. Direct contact with a wider range of Japanese employees and customers provides a much richer understanding of the business. Is Japan truly risk-averse? The interview presents a more nuanced picture than simply describing Japan as risk-averse. Japanese clients often prefer people they already know because continuity reduces uncertainty. An existing project manager with deep institutional knowledge may therefore be preferred to a technically stronger replacement who does not know the customer. Delsaux sees this as a balance. Companies need institutional knowledge, technical competence and resource availability simultaneously. Waiting for a familiar individual may be impossible when project schedules are tight. The leadership task is therefore not simply to overcome uncertainty avoidance. It is to explain why a new approach or resource can still protect delivery quality and client interests. What leadership style actually works? Delsaux defines leadership around trust and communication. Credibility matters. Leaders need to contribute something of value when employees approach them. His smoking analogy captures the principle of role modelling: leaders cannot demand behaviour they are unwilling to demonstrate themselves. Accessibility also matters. Employees should not feel that questions will be ignored simply because they are inconvenient or unrealistic. Internally, Delsaux stresses unity. Disagreements can occur, but different teams should not attack or blame one another in front of the customer. Clients who entrust multiple services to one company expect a unified answer. How can technology help? Technology serves two leadership purposes at PTS. First, project managers and consultants must remain current because new technologies continually affect project delivery. Global designs also need localisation for Japan because products, standards, availability and infrastructure can differ. Second, technology creates development opportunities for employees. Repetitive work can become boring, particularly in a tight labour market where skilled people have many alternatives. New technologies give engineers and consultants something new to learn and help keep their work challenging. Technology therefore has value not only as a project tool but also as an employee-development and retention mechanism. Does language proficiency matter? For Delsaux, it matters considerably. His first advice to an incoming foreign leader is simply: "First, learn Japanese." His own Japanese developed out of necessity while working in restaurants where neither French nor English could be relied upon. He believes making the effort to learn Japanese earns respect from employees and strengthens relationships, even when team members already speak English. Language learning also provides access to culture. Delsaux particularly values people who are not merely bilingual but bicultural because they can understand how managers in different countries interpret the same situation differently. Even with strong Japanese ability, he sometimes brings a Japanese colleague to important meetings. This reduces misunderstanding and can also demonstrate respect towards a Japanese-speaking client. What's the ultimate leadership lesson? Delsaux's answer is remarkably concise: trust and communication. Leadership cannot be exercised effectively through rules and email alone. Leaders need to talk to people, explain decisions, respond to questions and understand the challenges their staff are facing. The labour market makes this increasingly important. Employees who feel overworked, underdeveloped or bored now have alternatives. The old assumption that employees will remain indefinitely has weakened substantially. Leadership therefore depends on creating an environment in which people can learn, contribute, communicate and trust the people managing them. Technical competence remains important, but communication determines whether that expertise can be successfully translated into employee engagement and client confidence. 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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  Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan

  291 Anatole Varin — Founder and President, The Plant

  Aug 21, 202659 min

  "Trusting people to do things and respecting them and not micromanaging them has been essential to our culture." "If you believe in somebody and you respect them, they start to feel confident in their ability to do that thing." "If people feel they have a lot of autonomy in their work, they will naturally be coming with ideas." "AI is a power tool for us, and if we are not the craftsmen with the best use of these power tools, we are going to be in trouble." "Leadership is creating the environment for people to be successful." Anatole Varin is the Founder and President of The Plant, an enterprise commerce technology company that builds and operates custom digital commerce systems for global companies entering Japan and Japanese companies expanding internationally. The Plant develops its own technology stack rather than acting solely as a systems integrator, giving it greater control over speed, quality, security and localisation. Varin came to Japan in his late twenties after living in France, Spain, Brazil and the United States. He initially worked in education and later completed a master's degree in commerce in Nagoya. While researching a portal project for small and medium-sized enterprises in Aichi, he taught himself programming and became deeply involved in the early Internet economy. He went on to co-found GaijinPot, where he served as a one-person technology team responsible for coding, design and server management. After selling his interest, he founded The Plant more than twenty years ago. The company grew from a small Japan-based development business into an international organisation of roughly 100 people, with major development capability in China and an Australian presence. His career is defined by self-directed technical learning, entrepreneurship, trust-based growth and the gradual transition from individual maker to organisational leader. Anatole Varin's path to entrepreneurship in Japan was neither linear nor heavily planned. He arrived in his late twenties simply because Japan seemed interesting, worked in education and later pursued a master's degree in commerce in Nagoya. His thesis project involved building an online portal for small and medium-sized enterprises in Aichi at a time when the commercial Internet was only beginning to take shape. With little formal technical education, he taught himself to code by buying books, experimenting constantly and building the system from scratch. That work led to GaijinPot, the portal for foreigners living and working in Japan. As the sole technical person, Varin wrote the code, managed the servers and handled design. The experience gave him a powerful taste for speed and autonomy: he could have an idea and place it into production within days because there were few dependencies and nobody blocking execution. When he later founded The Plant, he initially expected to create consumer-facing online businesses. Several failed. As cash tightened, he began accepting development work from companies that knew his capabilities, and the business gradually evolved towards enterprise commerce systems. The Plant's growth was built largely through word-of-mouth. In enterprise technology, a mistake can directly damage a client's operations, so trust is fundamental. Large consulting brands often act as a proxy for trust; Varin had no such brand. Instead, he relied on personal reputation, repeat delivery, the quality of his developers and independent audits and certifications. Over time, clients who had experienced the company's speed and reliability recommended it to others. The company also differentiated itself by building and controlling its own technology stack. Many technology projects are slowed by chains of consultants, subcontractors and global platform owners. The people doing the work can be far removed from the product, while local Japan requirements compete with requests from dozens of other markets. By keeping development close to the customer and controlling the underlying technology, The Plant can respond faster, localise effectively and maintain security and quality. Its expansion into China was driven less by market entry than by access to a deep pool of engineering talent, while the Australian presence grew from the long-term relationship with its founding CTO. Varin's greatest leadership challenge was the transition from doing everything himself to working through other people. His natural preference is to build, move quickly and avoid unnecessary friction. Leadership, however, requires explaining the vision, motivating others and accepting that people need context rather than merely watching the founder work. He has received criticism for not articulating direction enough, yet his visible passion and direct involvement have also become important cultural signals. His strongest leadership instinct is trust. Long-serving leaders such as the company's CTO and China head became influential examples for others. Varin tries to respect capable people, avoid micromanagement and allow them to run with promising ideas before immediately attacking the weaknesses. By sharing their enthusiasm and backing them early, he helps people build confidence. Some ideas do not become viable products, but the failure is usually treated as an investment in learning rather than a reason to punish the person who tried. Autonomy is also the engine of innovation. Varin believes that people are naturally creative when they feel trusted to make decisions. The company uses objectives and key results to give teams a distributed process for setting goals, but the larger mechanism is environmental rather than bureaucratic. Transparent Slack channels, open access to company information and shared financial results help people understand what is happening and contribute without waiting for permission. Technology is now reshaping the company again. Varin views artificial intelligence as a power tool that every team must learn to use well. The Plant has established an AI centre of excellence, is moving developers towards technical product and system-design roles, and has embedded AI capabilities into its next platform, Cortex. AI allows faster prototyping and development, reinforcing the company's speed advantage, but it also creates pressure to grow the client base because the same work may require fewer people. His response is not to retreat or reduce the team, but to grow into the challenge. For leaders in Japan, Varin recommends learning the language while remaining realistic about identity. Fluency creates opportunity and helps Japanese colleagues communicate with greater ease and nuance, but a foreign executive will not become Japanese simply by copying surface behaviours. The better goal is to understand the environment, respect people, communicate openly and build a culture suited to the organisation. His final definition of leadership brings these ideas together: create the environment in which people and the company can succeed, establish alignment on where to go and support capable people in finding the path. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan requires close attention to trust, communication style and the distinction between cultural understanding and imitation. Varin's organisation is unusually international, yet its client base and operating environment are deeply connected to Japan. Foreign leaders need to recognise that Japanese colleagues may communicate more indirectly and feel more comfortable expressing nuance in Japanese. At the same time, Varin cautions against believing that fluent language or local mannerisms will make a foreign executive Japanese. The more useful goal is to understand the context, respect how people work and develop a culture that can function authentically inside Japan. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they value their own speed and expertise so highly that they fail to provide sufficient direction and context to others. Varin experienced this personally. As a highly productive founder-programmer, he was accustomed to having an idea and executing it immediately. Once the company grew, that approach no longer scaled. People needed the vision explained, motivation, guidance and room to interpret the objective. Another common difficulty is dependency: multinational systems can make Japan wait behind dozens of global priorities. Leaders who do not understand the local need for channels such as LINE or the speed of the market can unintentionally block progress. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Varin's experience suggests that risk in Japan is often managed through relationships, reputation and proof of reliability. The Plant won business not by asking clients to take an abstract chance on a small supplier, but through referrals from people who had already seen the quality of its work. Longevity and visible client success function as powerful green flags because few organisations want to be first. Inside the company, Varin reduces fear by backing good ideas before immediately listing all the reasons they could fail. When an initiative does not create a viable product, the result is usually treated as time and money spent learning, not as a career-ending error. What leadership style actually works? Varin's style is autonomy-centred. He trusts capable people, respects their expertise and avoids micromanagement. When someone is excited about a promising idea, he tries to ride the wave with them, support the energy and allow the person to discover where it leads. That confidence can be developmental: people who are believed in begin to believe more strongly in themselves. His style is also highly visible. Employees see that he remains technically curious, engaged in the work and willing to experiment personally. The weakness of this style is that passion and example do not always replace a clearly articulated vision, so effective founder leadership must balance involvement with explicit alignment. How can technology help? Technology is both The Plant's product and its organisational philosophy. Owning the complete technology stack reduces the delays and information loss created by long outsourcing chains. It allows the company to localise quickly, respond to Japan-specific platforms and maintain stronger control over quality and security. AI is now accelerating that advantage. The Plant encourages AI use across technical and non-technical teams, has created an AI centre of excellence and is embedding AI into its Cortex platform. Varin expects roles to move away from writing every line of code towards defining what should be built, supervising AI-generated output and exercising stronger product judgement. Does language proficiency matter? Varin believes Japanese proficiency opens substantial opportunities. It allows direct communication, helps colleagues relax and gives access to the ambiguity, softness and subtlety built into Japanese expression. He also notes that language ability declines when it is not used, regardless of how long someone lives in Japan. His own Japanese was stronger when his daily environment required it. Language can even influence personality, making a speaker appear softer or more indirect. Nevertheless, proficiency should not become a performance of being Japanese. It is a practical bridge for relationships, understanding and opportunity. What's the ultimate leadership lesson? The ultimate lesson is to create an environment where people can succeed. For Varin, that environment includes autonomy, respect, transparency, good colleagues, a pleasant physical or virtual workspace and alignment around where the company is going. Leadership does not mean personally solving every problem or controlling every decision. It means selecting and supporting people who can carry responsibility, allowing ideas to develop, sharing information and adjusting continually as the organisation learns. The founder's task is to make success more likely for the people and the company, not to remain the only person capable of producing it. 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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  Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan

  290 James Marsden — Head of Post-Trade, Asia Pacific, Broadridge Financial Solutions

  Aug 14, 20261h 13m

  "Leadership is a continual journey of getting better and knowing the right techniques to enable people around you to be successful." "The trick is to listen to the clients because they have problems, and they are going to tell you what keeps them up at night." "Giving people knowledge is something that enables them to grow in their career." "Never waste a mistake or an opportunity to learn something from what happened." "Leadership is about showing the way, knowing the way and giving people space." James Marsden is Head of Post-Trade, Asia Pacific, at Broadridge Financial Solutions, based in Tokyo. Broadridge provides technology platforms and infrastructure supporting major banks, broker-dealers, asset managers and other financial institutions across front-office, middle-office, post-trade and investor communications activities. Marsden joined the company in London in 1996, initially working as an engineer, programmer and systems designer. He came to Japan in 2000 to help deploy Broadridge technology for JPMorgan's investment banking business. Following the collapse of the dot-com bubble, the Tokyo office contracted dramatically, and at the age of 29 he was asked to run the Japan business. His combination of technical knowledge, project management experience, commercial awareness and Japanese-language ability made him unusually well equipped for the role. He subsequently held broader business development and regional leadership responsibilities and now oversees post-trade teams across Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia. His career illustrates adaptability in Japan, long-term client relationship building, technical-to-commercial progression and the development of a coaching-oriented leadership style. James Marsden's leadership career developed through necessity rather than formal succession planning. He began as an engineer and programmer at Broadridge in London, moved to Tokyo to support a major client implementation and, after the dot-com downturn reduced the local operation from roughly 20 or 30 people to four, was asked to lead the Japan business at just 29. He knew the platform, could speak with Japanese clients, understood delivery and had enough commercial judgement to distinguish between contracted service, maintenance and chargeable work. What he did not have was formal leadership training. That early experience shaped a practical philosophy: leadership is never finished. It is a continual process of learning how to equip people with knowledge, give them room to operate and create a circle of safety in which they can learn and make mistakes without being abandoned. Marsden's technical expertise initially gave him credibility with employees and clients. As his scope expanded, direct technical knowledge became less available, so his role shifted towards coaching—sharing how he would approach a problem without micromanaging the person responsible for solving it. Client listening was central to rebuilding the Japanese business from four people to around 60. Marsden argues that customers usually articulate their problems, not the solution. The leader's task is to understand what keeps them awake, combine technical and creative thinking, and bring together the internal support required to deliver an answer. This also demands 'leading up': selling the opportunity internally and ensuring senior management stands behind the local team. His approach to hiring reflects the same developmental mindset. Broadridge sought intelligent, analytical people who wanted to learn, including graduates whose potential might not be visible in a conventional Japanese interview. Analytical testing helped identify problem-solving capability beyond polished self-presentation. The company could then offer something distinctive: the opportunity to become a global subject-matter expert in specialised areas of securities processing rather than rotate anonymously through a large organisation. Marsden sees culture as something employees experience through behaviour. Leaders must give people space, lead by example and keep the client at the centre. In Japan, smaller meetings, dinners and informal conversations often create more candid communication than large English-language town halls. Foreign leaders should not force employees to speak English when doing so suppresses ideas. They should allow people to communicate in the language and format that produces the best contribution, listen carefully and make room before offering their own opinion. Broadridge's global purpose—to help clients operate, innovate and grow—and its CREATE values provide a North Star, but Marsden stresses that leaders must translate corporate language into daily meaning. Employees need to understand why a client request matters, how a project supports growth and what financial results mean for their own learning and opportunities. Values become credible when leaders choose the right client solution rather than the most lucrative one and when sales, delivery, support and infrastructure collaborate before promises are made. Trust, in Marsden's experience, comes from doing what was promised when it was promised. It is strengthened by offering employees unique developmental experiences, keeping commercial commitments and responding constructively when mistakes occur. Genuine errors are inevitable; the true test of character is whether the team faces the problem, resolves it and learns from it. Criticism, particularly in Japan, can drive people back into risk avoidance. Coaching should instead help them accept that an 80 per cent solution delivered in time may create more client value than perfection delivered too late. For expatriate leaders, Marsden strongly recommends learning Japanese. Language opens doors, signals respect and builds trust that translation technology cannot replicate. Yet language alone is insufficient: leaders must become bicultural, understand nemawashi and consensus, honour commitments and appreciate Japanese decision logic. A trusted senior adviser with industry knowledge can also help interpret context more accurately than a junior translator. Marsden's final definition is direct: leadership means showing and knowing the way, giving people space, coaching with specific value, making difficult decisions and explaining why they serve the longer-term good. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan depends heavily on trust, context and the quality of relationships surrounding a decision. Marsden emphasises that large formal meetings often discourage participation, especially when people are required to speak English or risk being the first person to challenge an idea. Smaller groups, one-to-one conversations and informal dinners can produce far more candid dialogue. Nemawashi and consensus-building also matter: once a Japanese organisation has reached a decision, financial incentives may not reverse it because the underlying values and internal alignment differ from a Western transactional model. Effective leaders therefore listen before speaking, allow employees to communicate in their preferred language and understand how decisions were formed. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives struggle when they assume that a familiar management technique will produce the same response in Japan. Forcing English in meetings can turn a discussion into a one-way presentation. Relying on a bilingual junior employee or interpreter can also distort important meaning because translation inevitably involves interpretation, and the person may lack the business experience to recognise what matters. Headquarters may also try to solve a Japanese client problem with discounts or contractual arguments when the real issue is trust, quality or a firmly completed internal decision. Marsden recommends developing cultural knowledge, using experienced advisers and appreciating the client's perspective before prescribing a solution. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Marsden views Japanese risk avoidance as closely linked to perfectionism, accountability and concern about making visible mistakes. Employees may invest enormous effort in moving a solution from 80 or 90 per cent to near-perfection, even when the final increment delays value and consumes disproportionate resources. Leaders must explain that controlled experimentation and incomplete automation can still serve the customer well. When genuine mistakes happen, criticism is counterproductive because it teaches people never to step outside their safe role again. The better response is to face the problem, protect the client, identify what can be learned and rebuild the employee's confidence. What leadership style actually works? Marsden favours a coaching-oriented style that combines technical credibility, listening, knowledge-sharing and latitude. Early in his career, he could teach from direct product expertise. As his remit expanded, he shifted towards offering guidance—explaining how he might approach an issue—without micromanaging. He believes leaders should create a circle of safety, have people's backs and give them challenging opportunities through which they can grow. Leading by example is essential: values become real when the leader chooses the client's best solution over a larger sale, follows through on commitments and makes difficult decisions while explaining the long-term rationale. How can technology help? Technology is both Broadridge's business and a source of employee engagement. Marsden encourages small-scale innovation: side tools, automation and new methods that remove repetitive manual work while helping engineers learn a new language, product domain or business process. Many small innovations can combine to increase organisational velocity. He also finds visualisation particularly powerful. When teams build a diagram together on a whiteboard, people who may struggle to express an idea in English can add boxes, flows and connections. The shared picture creates involvement, improves understanding and often becomes a more effective client communication tool than dense text. Does language proficiency matter? Marsden strongly recommends learning Japanese. He believes it creates trust that cannot be achieved in the same way through translators or generative AI because it demonstrates genuine investment in the country and its people. Japanese also opens commercial doors and allows more nuanced relationships with clients who may not feel comfortable discussing complex services in English. Nevertheless, speaking Japanese is not enough. A foreign leader also needs bicultural awareness: the ability to understand etiquette, commitments, consensus, client expectations and the meaning behind what is said. Experienced bilingual advisers with deep industry knowledge can provide an invaluable bridge. What's the ultimate leadership lesson? Marsden's ultimate lesson is that leadership means showing the way, knowing the way and giving people space. It is not shouting, bullying or demanding a result without useful guidance. A strong leader coaches with specificity, shares knowledge, makes difficult decisions and helps people understand why those decisions serve the organisation over time. The leader also listens to clients and employees, protects room for learning and treats mistakes as opportunities that should never be wasted. Leadership remains a journey because the techniques required to enable others must continually evolve as the organisation, technology and people change. 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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  Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan

  Thomas Fraessle - Representative Director and CEO, ITK Engineering Japan

  Aug 7, 20261h 6m

  "Leading is empowering, guiding, inspiring and having a shared goal of working together." "You need to build up trust, and for me what really helped was the one-on-ones." "Nobody wants to have a surprise in the meeting." "Predictability is really important for any leader." "Leadership is bringing your people forward and putting them in the position where they can perform at their best." Thomas Fraessle is the Representative Director and CEO of ITK Engineering Japan, a professional engineering services company that develops customised software and systems solutions across automotive, healthcare, railway and other technology-intensive sectors. ITK originated in Germany and later became part of the Bosch Group. Fraessle studied electrical engineering and completed his diploma thesis at Mercedes-Benz, working on vehicle energy simulation and battery sizing. He then joined ITK when it was still a relatively small engineering company, attracted by the chance to work across varied projects rather than enter a large corporation. After assignments supporting General Motors Europe, he asked for an opportunity to work abroad and chose Japan precisely because it was unfamiliar and culturally distant from his previous experience. He first arrived in Japan in 2008, worked through a local partner and helped initiate the establishment of ITK's own Japanese operation. After returning to Germany and developing his leadership experience, he came back to Japan in February 2022 as Representative Director and CEO. His career reflects adaptability across engineering, business development and people leadership, as well as the transition from individual technical contributor to cross-cultural organisational leader. Thomas Fraessle's leadership journey in Japan began with curiosity rather than a carefully mapped expatriate career. After studying electrical engineering and completing a practical diploma thesis at Mercedes-Benz, he joined the then-small ITK Engineering because he wanted exposure to multiple projects and responsibilities. An assignment supporting General Motors Europe introduced him to international collaboration and prompted him to ask ITK's founder for an overseas opportunity. Given a choice between the United States and Japan, he selected Japan because it represented the more unfamiliar challenge. That first period in Japan, beginning in 2008, gave Fraessle direct experience as an engineer working with Japanese customers. More than a decade later, he returned as the head of ITK Engineering Japan. The country was familiar, but the responsibility was entirely different. As CEO, he had to build alignment, create trust, communicate direction and encourage people to speak candidly. He quickly discovered that leadership concepts such as motivation, feedback and empowerment do not travel unchanged across cultures. One of the sharpest differences was feedback. In Germany, direct feedback could be treated as a normal part of improving performance. In Japan, the word itself could sound negative, as though a leader was about to explain what an employee had done badly. Fraessle found that honest views rarely appeared automatically in group meetings. He therefore invested in repeated one-to-one conversations, asking not simply what was wrong, but how the team could improve something together and what support people needed from him. Trust accumulated gradually, and some changes required a full year of discussion and preparation. This experience led him to appreciate nemawashi—the groundwork conducted before a formal decision. In many Western meetings, participants debate an issue and decide in the room. In Japan, the visible meeting may be the final confirmation of extensive prior consultation. Fraessle learned to plant ideas, explain them more than once, listen to objections and allow people time to reach confidence in the direction. Although the process can seem slow, it can produce stronger implementation because surprises and unresolved resistance have been reduced beforehand. Trust is also reinforced through transparency and predictability. Fraessle explains not only KPIs and decisions, but the business reasoning behind them. He distinguishes explanation from excuse-making: the leader should own the decision rather than hide behind headquarters. He is also willing to acknowledge mistakes, viewing this as strength rather than weakness. Employees need to know that problems can be raised without anger, blame or humiliation. A leader whose reactions vary with mood creates hesitation; a consistent leader makes it safer to speak up. Fraessle translated these beliefs into organisational practices. He introduced company gatherings after the isolation of COVID-19, created engineering workshops and cross-project technical groups, and redesigned the office around shared desks and easier interaction. These choices were not cosmetic. They created occasions for engineers from different projects to meet, exchange solutions and generate ideas that could be reused with other customers. His approach to hybrid work is similarly contextual rather than rigid: customer satisfaction, project needs and team collaboration matter more than mechanically applying one rule to everyone. His ultimate definition of leadership is practical and developmental. It is about bringing people forward, helping them build competence, giving them confidence to decide, guiding them with useful feedback and placing them where they can perform at their best. In Japan, that requires patience, relationship-building and respect for context. The leader's task is not to impose a foreign operating model immediately, but to understand why the current system exists, preserve what serves customers and then lead change with clarity and consistency. Q&A Summary What makes leadership in Japan unique? Leadership in Japan is shaped by context, relationship history and extensive preparation before visible decisions. Fraessle found that people may not openly disagree in a group, particularly when hierarchy, seniority or concern about losing face is involved. A formal meeting may therefore confirm a direction that has already been discussed through nemawashi rather than serve as the arena where competing views are first exposed. Leaders must learn to read what is not being said, create private channels for honest discussion and give colleagues time to absorb and test a proposal. Japan's strong commitment to quality and long-term customer trust also affects leadership. A defect or poorly handled mistake can damage a relationship that took years to establish, so teams often seek a very high degree of certainty before acting. Why do global executives struggle? Global executives often struggle because they interpret different behaviour as poor performance or resistance. A process may appear inefficient from headquarters, yet exist because a Japanese customer requires it or because it protects a long-standing relationship. Fraessle advises leaders to investigate why people work in a particular way before changing it. He benefited from having previously worked at customer sites in Japan and understood that management reports rarely show the full picture. Another difficulty is expecting direct feedback. Employees may say yes to preserve harmony without meaning that they fully support immediate execution. Foreign leaders can also mistake English silence for lack of knowledge, when capable employees are simply reluctant to risk making a linguistic mistake in public. Is Japan truly risk-averse? Fraessle's experience suggests that Japanese employees are not simply unwilling to take risks; they are highly conscious of quality, accountability and the social consequences of being wrong. An engineer may study a question for weeks before asking for help because appearing unprepared could mean losing face. That caution can protect quality, but it can also slow learning. Fraessle encourages people to ask earlier, communicate sooner and use colleagues' expertise. He also makes clear that mistakes are normal and that leaders should own their own errors. Risk-taking becomes more realistic when people know how failures will be handled, when trials are bounded and when the purpose of experimentation is organisational learning rather than individual judgement. What leadership style actually works? The most effective style in Fraessle's account combines approachability, consistency, transparency and role modelling. He used one-to-one meetings to build trust and even created a short personal guide explaining his direct German communication style so colleagues would not misread it as personal hostility. He established regular company meetings and informal gatherings so employees could see him, question him and understand how he behaved. He explains why targets and decisions matter, does not blame headquarters for choices he has made, and apologises when he is wrong. Above all, he stresses predictability. Employees should not have to study the leader's mood before deciding whether it is safe to raise a problem. How can technology help? Technology is central to ITK's business, but Fraessle's leadership lesson is that innovation requires human structures as well as technical expertise. Engineers working deeply on individual customer projects can become isolated from one another. ITK Engineering Japan therefore creates engineering workshops and cross-project technical groups where employees demonstrate tools, discuss cybersecurity, programming and systems challenges, and ask peers for alternative solutions. Ideas arising from these exchanges can improve one project and later become reusable solutions for other customers. Digital collaboration also supports an international workforce, but Fraessle does not treat technology as a substitute for human contact. Office design, shared desks, company meetings and informal conversation deliberately create the serendipitous exchanges that remote work can reduce. Does language proficiency matter? Fraessle believes learning Japanese is valuable because an expatriate leader is a guest in the country and language deepens cultural understanding. He also candidly acknowledges how difficult it is to improve without regular use and wishes he had invested more heavily at the beginning. At executive level, it is possible to lead without full proficiency, and sometimes using English can create a neutral international space. The larger challenge is psychological safety: many Japanese employees possess stronger English than they reveal in the office because they fear mistakes. Leaders should provide different ways to communicate, allow preparation and create low-pressure opportunities for people to use the language. What's the ultimate leadership lesson? Fraessle defines leadership as bringing people forward. The leader should guide, inspire and support employees, help them build the competence required for autonomy, and give them the confidence to make decisions. This begins with trust and a genuine relationship. It also requires patience: change in Japan may take longer than an overseas headquarters expects, but forcing action without understanding can destroy commitment or customer value. The ultimate lesson is to understand the system before altering it, remain consistent in words and behaviour, and create an environment where people can contribute, question, learn and perform at their best. 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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