The past 30 years has seen a sea change in the willingness, some would say eagerness, of foreign firms in Japan to engage external stakeholders, including government officials and politicians and their staff. Indeed, senior executives in many foreign firms in Japan now see GR as a key element of their business strategy in Japan. The GR space represent a significant shift, it remains to be seen how the Japanese side views the increasingly proactive, high-profile, and “impactful” approach to influence their decision making.

In the August CI lunch we will welcome Keith Henry, a 30 year Japan veteran. Keith began his career in Japan as an aide to a member of the Diet, then as an aide to both the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Environment. After 5 years with a management consulting firm in Tokyo, he established Asia Strategy where he pioneered the establishment of government relations as a profession in Japan. Keith has great client relationships and is very open about what his firm is doing. His clients have included financial services and banking (UBS, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Manulife, Genworth), ICT (Dell, HPE, Vodafone, eBay), healthcare (Pfizer, PhRMA, EFPIA, Bayer, GSK), consumer goods and services (Wynn Resort, Wal-Mart, Philip Morris, UPS), manufacturing (GE, United Technologies, Embraer Aerospace), alternative investment funds (TCI, Elliott Advisors, Caxton Advisors, Perry Capital), among others.

Join us for an insightful lunch on what companies are doing into Japan to work better with our government.

Date– Friday, 9 Sept 1230PM-1400PM
Venue–
Roppongi Hills Club- Roppongi Hills Club- La Cucina Restaurant (Italian)
51 fl. Roppongi Hills Mori Tower,
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku,
Tokyo, 106-6151 Japan

In business, when we think of “acquisition” immediately the image of a large firm buying a smaller firm to get into a national market, buy market share, or even kill potential competition. In the August CEO Insights, we will be talking about when it is right to buy a company, and when it is best to hold steady.

We will be expanding our definition of acquisition to incorporate the view of the c-level. Acquiring new talent is a huge challenge for every firm but there are many other areas. In a start up business, the three Ps are pricing (costs), productivity, and planning. As we grow we must know how to speed our processes both internally and externally. A healthy business is a living growing organization.

In the August CEO Insights luncheon, our discussion will center on acquisition from many angles. We’ll discuss some actual examples of some great decisions (and likely see some things that didn’t go so well as we expected).

Date– Tuesday, 16 August 1230PM-1400PM
Venue–
Roppongi Hills Club- Roppongi Hills Club- La Cucina Restaurant (Italian)
51 fl. Roppongi Hills Mori Tower,
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku,
Tokyo, 106-6151 Japan

Everyone knows the joke about the two things we must do in life, pay taxes and die someday. The good thing about paying a lot of tax is that can generally indicate you are doing well as a CEO. If you’ve been running any size organization for any amount of time, you will know that understanding taxation is something that can make or break your business.

In the August CEO Insights luncheon we will welcome Mr. Nasir Majid who is a Partner running the International Assignment Services (IAS) practice in Tokyo, Japan for PwC. The lunch will be regarding taxation on the personal level. We plan to focus on group discussion and will cover the below areas-
• Tips & tricks for saving money on income tax
• How to more effectively pass the fruit of your labor on to the next family generation
• Understanding Japan Estate tax and the new Exit tax
Join us for a very engaging CI luncheon. You will leave the meeting with more than you left and have more connections to reinforce that.

Date– Friday, 19 August 1230PM-1400PM
Venue–
Roppongi Hills Club- Roppongi Hills Club- La Cucina Restaurant (Italian)
51 fl. Roppongi Hills Mori Tower,
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku,
Tokyo, 106-6151 Japan
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Earlier this year, once again, Japan’s LDP decided not to seek passage of a bill to legalize casino operations in Japan. The bill would lift the ban on casino operations and development. This was yet another disappointment in a long line of setbacks for those who would like to see casinos in Japan as a boost to tourism and local economies.

Integrated Resorts were meant to be an important part of PM Abe’s development model, but now some people say Japan has missed the boat on another regional opportunity. The question now is whether developer and operators that were interested have thrown in the towel? Or is the market opportunity too large to abandon, with those that know Japan playing the long (waiting) game?

Kiyoshi Nishijima has spent a good deal of his time involved with major hospitality projects in the region, as well as various government entities. 10 years ago he founded CLC and three years later formed the Japan Gaming Development Organization (JGDO) for the purpose of representing casino/gaming interests in Japan as a lobbying organization. Since then he has become a legal representative of Melco Crown Entertainment with respect its interests in Japan. Kiyoshi will be able to give us good insight into where the casino bill is headed, whether indeed Japan has lost the opportunity and perhaps some other interesting stories from the work he has done so far to push this casino bill through in Japan.

Date– Thursday, 18 August 1230PM-1400PM
Venue–
Roppongi Hills Club- Roppongi Hills Club- La Cucina Restaurant (Italian)
51 fl. Roppongi Hills Mori Tower,
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku,
Tokyo, 106-6151 Japan

Life is not just about knowing people, it’s about knowing good people. There’s no beating the quality of CEO Insights members and our guests around a table. As an executive, it can be lonely at the top and CI fills that void. As we close out and say “sayonara” to summer 2016, we want to give an extra opportunity for our CI groups to get to know each other. The evening of September 1st, we will break away from our regular luncheons and biannual forums and have arranged a special event. This evening of strictly food and networking gives members a chance to catch up with fellow CEOs after a relaxing summer break.

For the evening, real estate developer Pembroke welcomes us back for special outdoor barbecue reception at their luxurious Azabu Gardens property’s Rooftop Terrace. The catering is by Tokyo’s Elio’s restuarant. Please sign up early as space is limited to the first 25 CEOs to sign up.

CEO Insights – Sayonara Summer Barbecue (SS BBQ) Reception

When: Thursday, September 1st, 7pm – 9pm.
Where: Azabu Gardens (Behind Roppongi Hills)
Cost: 8,000 yen / person
RSVP: Ms. Miho Imai

*Payments shall be made via bank transfer. Due to booking with the catering, no cancellations after 5pm on 25 August (Friday)

With the global market trending towards sharing, it is fascinating to watch that trend and how it effects our businesses. We’ve got ride-sharing (Uber, Lyft), room-sharing (AirBNB), and a lot of resource sharing (freelancer.com) and many other new business models that seem to show the market going from “owning your resources, to sharing your resources”.
Traditionally, we’ve seen consulting firms as the way to get extra resources for your accounting, advertising, and other marketing areas. In the July CI meeting, we’ll be discussing how to more effecctively use outside resources to build your business.

– The increase in business benefits derived from the use of consultants through more effective selection, management and control of them;

– The reduction of consulting fees and expenses from not only being better equipped for negotiations but also through more effective structuring of consultant vs. company resources; and

– The transfer of knowledge and capabilities to company personnel by using them more effectively in projects involving consultants.

Date– Tuesday, 19 July 1230PM-1400PM
Venue–
Roppongi Hills Club- Roppongi Hills Club- La Cucina Restaurant (Italian)
51 fl. Roppongi Hills Mori Tower,
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku,
Tokyo, 106-6151 Japan

The Internet is now the forth social infrastructure and continue to be evolved just from connectivity to digitizing the world. IoT is creating new economy connecting unconnected with people, processes and big data. We live in a generation of great change.

Sharing economy is one of the new business opportunities leveraging the power of the Internet. Under this circumstance how do businesses continue to create innovation ? What is the ideal organization to promote entrepreneurship ? What does globalization really mean for the Japanese enterprises ?

Come join us at the July CEO Insights Luncheon where we will Rakuten executive Yasu Hirai as he shares his thoughts with the our group in this interactive luncheon.

Date– Thursday, 14July 1230PM-1400PM
Venue–
Roppongi Hills Club- Roppongi Hills Club- La Cucina Restaurant (Italian)
51 fl. Roppongi Hills Mori Tower,
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku,
Tokyo, 106-6151 Japan

On May 11th, at their New Product Release event, Docomo introduced several initiatives by its group companies centered on the theme of making life comfortable with a focus on health.

One of the spotlights was Hill’s Epicure, a new low-carb, low-fat pre-cooked frozen gourmet meal presented by Shop Japan, which was received by high praise much to our humble gratitude.

Hill’s Epicure, also introduced by Harry Hill when we hosted the C8 event last year, is a new category of diet that truly brings together health and first-class taste to your dinner table. Another late night at work? Not a problem, because over are the days where time and a healthy, fulfilling meal is a tradeoff. We developed this amazing product as a means to help people achieve the fun, happy and healthy lifestyle they deserve.

We are delighted to inform you that Hill’s Epicure is now available to purchase from our website.
(Website only in Japanese)

Understanding politics even in one’s own language is sometimes a chore, sometimes a bore. For those of us who live in Japan, though, this challenge is exponentially greater and not just because of the language and culture: it truly is a black-box here even for Japanese citizens (who at least can peer into the inner workings and make good guesses).  For an internationally educated CEO, staying abreast is a tall order.  In fact, the day after our lunch (7/22), 18 days of boisterous campaigning begin: what exactly does this mean for the Diet, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, the loose alliance of opposition parties… and importantly: should we care?

For our June CEO Insights meeting, please welcome Timothy Langley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Langley). Timothy will share insight on what the coming elections have in store for us and why it might be important to follow these developments.  The postponed consumption tax raise, Abe’s 2nd Three Arrows, the inclusion of 18 year-olds in the ballots, and more all conspire to create an exciting ride for business leaders.

 

Date– Tuesday, 21 June 1230PM-1400PM
Venue–
Roppongi Hills Club- Roppongi Hills Club- La Cucina Restaurant (Italian)
51 fl. Roppongi Hills Mori Tower,
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku,
Tokyo, 106-6151 Japan

Many companies send middle or blossoming upper management from the head office to take on the Representative director role in the Japan entity. The challenge is that many of those people don’t completely understand the implications of the role much less the person going. In the June CI lunch we will have John Dorff of the TMF Group and a member of the CI group sharing an Overview of the Role Of A Legal Director in a Japanese corporation. He will be engaging us talking about:

Over-guiding Responsibilities
– Employer v. Employee
– Is a local director required? (Changes Given the March 2015 Changes to the Corporate Law Fiduciary Responsibility)
– Directorship with/without a Board
– Personal Implications
– Tax Implications

John has been in Japan for 20 plus years, speaks Japanese fluently and is/has been the Legal Representative or is/has been on the board of over 100 companies in Japan.

We look forward to seeing you Friday.
Date– Thursday, 10 June 1230PM-1400PM
Venue–
Roppongi Hills Club- Roppongi Hills Club- La Cucina Restaurant (Italian)
51 fl. Roppongi Hills Mori Tower,
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku,
Tokyo, 106-6151 Japan