Stories of Our People

For six years after joining the company, I engaged in the trading of steel materials for automotive steel sheets. Steel sheets are metal sheets used for automobile doors and hoods. I engaged in purchasing these sheets and selling them to automakers in and outside Japan. I was lucky to have great opportunities to have mutual conversations with customers to identify the issues together and solve these issues in cooperation with suppliers at an early stage in my career. I also had experience working as a salesperson overseas, which made me realize that my perspective was narrow. As Sumitomo Corporation is an integrated trading company, I gradually began to think it necessary to look to a wider range of possibilities, not just the options already laid out before me. Accordingly, I asked myself what I valued and what made me happy. As a result, I found out that I was interested in the retail business, where I could engage more closely with customers and have the opportunity to get involved in the management of an operating company at an early stage. I decided to apply for a job transfer through the internal job posting system. Because I made this decision for myself, rather than having someone else tell me what to do, I felt more committed and a stronger sense of responsibility for my own career.
I was subsequently seconded to a supermarket operating company in Taiwan, where I was able to serve as executive vice president. I served not only as an executive but also as an expat representing Sumitomo Corporation, the company’s shareholder. Through fulfilling my mission to support daily lives of local residents and make customers and employees happy, I could feel that my work is making a contribution to society.
Now I am supporting each of the operating companies and developing new businesses in the consumption and distribution field centering on supermarkets. My goal today is to contribute to enriching the lives of people outside Japan by taking advantage of the unique and exquisite sensitivity of the Japanese approach to business.

I have long been engaged in the electric power business in the Asian region. In Vietnam I served as president of a power plant and am now heading up one of business unit in Sumitomo Corporation Asia & Oceania Group.
What I value most as a team leader is expressed by the slogan, “For the Project,” which means you should make decisions that are optimal for each project. It is an unavoidable fact that participants in a project sometimes have conflicting opinions. In such cases, I always make decisions based on “what is optimal for the project” and not on “whose opinion to prioritize.” It is also important to work with a smile. Grimacing won’t reduce my workload. I think it is important to enjoy working on the project together with team members and communicate proactively, which will definitely improve the output of the team.
I also aim to make the team where individuals work independently. The ideal team for me is where everyone is empowered as independent professionals in their respective fields, while sharing the goal to be attained by the entire team. I trust the team members and let them approach their tasks in whatever way they see fit. I often say to them, “The company will not collapse even if you fail at this. Don’t worry.”
We do not own technologies or products. Instead, our people are our strengths. To pursue even higher goals as a team, I will work to put the right people in the right assignments based on their respective capabilities and visions, regardless of age or gender, and unleash the power of people.

I am currently working at Sumitomo Corporation Europe and living in Norway with my children. I was seconded to the company after engaging in the trade of tubular products and the planning and development of the tubular products business in energy industry in Tokyo office. While in Japan, I took maternity and childcare leave twice.
When I was offered an overseas assignment, I had a three-year-old and a six-year-old. They were eager to go abroad, saying, “Mom, if you go, we will go with you!” and my husband also gave me a nudge, saying that it would be a great opportunity for me to develop my career and for our children to experience living abroad. Although I still felt uneasy about taking care of the kids alone while working as an expat, in the end I decided to take on the challenge.
In Norway, I have been keeping my work and life in balance with program provided by the company, such as hiring a babysitter and asking my parents to come from Japan to support me. My children adjusted to living in Norway very quickly and I now have mom friends who are in the similar situation and we support each other. Above all, I now feel a sense of fulfillment, particularly because I can closely observe the growth of the business and my children.
Presently, as a general manager, I am leading a multinational team. The team members from various countries with different laws and cultures have different perspectives about work and family. As a leader of this team, I am committed to understanding their respective backgrounds and listening to them carefully. I only recognized how rewarding it was to lead a team after actually experiencing it in Norway. I am glad that I did not reject the idea of taking my children overseas and working as an expat and manager in Norway. Embracing all the challenges, I am now enjoying both work and life.

After experiencing HR at construction and consulting companies in Malaysia, Thailand, and Dubai, I began working as a HR specialist at Sumitomo Corporation Middle East Africa (hereinafter referred to as SCMEA) in 2011. Currently, I lead and manage Human Resources and General Affairs (HR&GA) objectives and practices for the SCMEA group to achieve an employee-oriented, high-performance culture, and working environment. With a highly capable HR&GA team, we provide advice on operational guidelines, acting as an adviser to the offices in the Middle East & Africa region.
The integration of the Sumitomo Corporation Middle East with a subsidiary company in 2015 was a significant turning point in my career. As a result of the integration, the number of employees increased from 42 to 75, and the diversity of nationalities, personalities and functions also expanded. The integrated subsidiary dealt with oil and gas, which brought cultural differences, and the journey to integrate policies and unify as one organization was not an easy one. However, through this experience, I learned a lot and developed my ability to innovate HR operations to cater to a larger and more diverse team.
Throughout my career at Sumitomo Corporation, there have been several significant turning points like this, and I consider myself very fortunate to have encountered outstanding visionary managers and mentors each time. Each leader brought different personalities and perspectives, allowing me to grow autonomously with their support. I aspire strongly to be a leader who not only manages teams but also positively influences members, much like the leaders who have contributed to my growth.
I love HR and am very passionate about advocating what the best practice HR represents. I aspire to have the opportunity to globalize best practices, enabling company-wide standardization.　I believe this would complement Sumitomo Corporation’s drive towards becoming a more global organization.

When I joined Sumitomo Corporation in 2011, I was assigned to manage corporate-wide investment standards, and conduct profitability analysis for investment projects. After three years, I went to Beijing as a Chinese language trainee, followed by the two years of experience in Shanghai conducting investment and credit risk analysis for Sumitomo Corporation’s businesses in China.
Inspired by this experience in China, I decided to study abroad again for an MBA to strengthen my skills in investment management, and this experience made me think deeply about my own career and completely changed my career path.
Until then, I had been engaged in variety of businesses from the investor’s side, where I judged the other people’s businesses. However, throughout my MBA journey, I began to think I want to run my own business. After exploring opportunities both inside and outside Sumitomo Corporation, I applied for the “0→1 (Zero to One) Challenge,” company’s in-house entrepreneurship program, and selected to gain funds to explore my ideas.
Under this program, I am now working to develop a daily-laundry delivery service named “Life Wash” partnering with Hakuyosha, one of the largest dry-cleaning companies in Japan. We started to develop this business in 2022 and are now conducting POC.
Through this intrapreneurship experience, I became strongly aware of the strength of Sumitomo Corporation. Sumitomo Corporation regards employees as its capital and promotes the business in cooperation with experts in various fields. Sumitomo Corporation also has an extensive network outside the company and utilize the network to maximize the business opportunities. In addition, intrapreneurs can devote themselves to the development of a new business without worrying to make their own living, which I think is a very attractive feature of intrapreneurship.
I would like to explore the possibilities as an intrapreneur in my 30s, and then manage bigger businesses in my 40s and 50s. Then, at the age of 60, my plan is to become a university professor so that I can share my experience with young generations to give something back to the society.

Being eager to work overseas, I joined Sumitomo Corporation after targeting integrated trading companies and manufacturers in my job hunting activities. In my fourth year with the company, I was transferred to Sumitronics Thailand under the trainee program. Sumitronics Thailand is one of global companies which has been providing EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Service) business, contract manufacturing of various kinds of electronic device, from JIT delivery of electronic components to circuit board mounting, module assembly, and the manufacture of finished products. At this company I am serving Japan-based air conditioner manufacturers.
Soon after being transferred to Sumitronics Thailand, I interviewed the staff and tried to identify on-site problems in order to make operational improvements. Some of the local staff responded negatively to this, however, perhaps thinking, “This young upstart from Japan is trying to change how we do things.” In Thailand, more than 90% of people are Buddhists and they tend to value seniority. Although I used to express my opinions very clearly, I began to communicate with local staff in a different manner, thinking that they would not accept me if I continued to adopt my ordinary communication style. Specifically, I tried to focus not only on the problems but also praised the good points of their conventional methods. I also encouraged them to work with me in searching for improvement possibilities. As a result, they now listen proactively to new proposals, and we are able to smoothly improve operations.
This experience has been a good reminder that I cannot do anything alone. Of course, I had also been working in a team before being seconded to Thailand, but in Japan I was assigned a task and most of things were up to me. Now, however, I need to gain the understanding and cooperation of the staff and lead everyone to adopt a new method in order to make improvements in our operation. Working at this Thai company has thus taught me that it is of utmost importance to earn the trust of those around me and gain their support for what I want to achieve.
In Thailand I have also made friends with expats working in a range of industries. Taking daily inspiration from these good-humored, outstanding people, I am feeling fulfilled both at work and in my private life.

Soon after my wife became pregnant, I talked to my manager about my decision to take childcare leave for one year, as I was very eager to take care of my child. I am now grateful to all those around me for their kind understanding and cooperation. It is because of them that I was able to spend that special time with my child.
But taking care of the household and the baby full time was more difficult than I expected. The experience made me a strong believer in the importance of cooperating with my partner for childrearing. On the other hand, of course I felt uneasy about being absent from work for a year. At the same time, however, I reasoned that this was not such a long time compared with the number of years that lay ahead of me and therefore decided that taking the leave was an appropriate move for me.
By taking the leave, I also had time to stop and think about my own career. In particular, I was able to see how valuing both my work and my family life could be positive for my job and a great benefit to my future career, which still has many years to play out. Because of the stability I enjoy at home and in my private life, I feel that I can work hard and achieve more.
Since returning to work, I have been able to balance work and life with my partner who also works, supported by the understanding of those around me and a flexible working environment. Moreover, I can now understand how employees whose work time are limited feel in the workplace. As a member of the HR team, I think I can make use of my own experience to engage with individual employees with diverse backgrounds.
A decade ago, it tended to be the case that only people who could devote themselves 100% to their job and give no consideration to their family could thrive in the workplace. Now, however, there are lots of people who can thrive, even if the time they can spend working is limited. I hope that Sumitomo Corporation will be a company where all employees can work according to their respective situation and can also do what they value, including providing childcare or nursing care or receiving treatment for an illness.

After my husband decided to go abroad for an MBA, I quit my job at Sumitomo Corporation, prioritizing living together as a family. While overseas, I audited some of my husband’s MBA classes and strived to acquire a new qualification to make my time abroad meaningful. I also stayed in touch with my former colleagues at Sumitomo Corporation and, following the completion of my husband’s overseas program, I rejoined the company on the advice of my former boss.
Before rejoining the company, I thought that the working environment would be different after an interval of around five years, during which time I also gave birth to my third child. Moreover, I did not think it would be easy to work while raising three children. In fact, for several months after coming back to work, I found it difficult to get back into my old routine, and it felt like a period of rehabilitation. However, thanks to the understanding and support from those around me, for which I feel very grateful, I have been able to keep working until now.
In addition, I have noticed positive changes regarding the company’s attitude toward issues related to ESG and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I). Before I quit, I had been working on setting out the company’s material issues (materiality) to achieve sustainable growth with society at the Corporate Planning & Coordination Dept. At that time, it could not be said that each member of business group actually embraced the idea of materiality. Now, however, the issues are reflected in the strategies of each business, which indicates that the company is truly committed to ESG and DE&I. As for DE&I, my team has several members who joined the company as mid-career hires, and most have partners who are also working. This makes the workplace even more comfortable.
These days I really enjoy working together with members of the department and my team. I am now in charge of developing new businesses and am moving it forward step by step through discussions with my team. I sometimes feel discouraged as things do not always go as expected, but I am continuing to make efforts with my team members, and we are encouraging one another. I am thus striving alongside my “comrades in arms” to attain our shared goal.

Soon after joining Sumitomo Corporation, I expressed my desire to work in the most challenging environment. As a result, I engaged in a project to construct one of the largest wood processing factories in Russia in my fourth year at the company. The project team had to build and operate a factory in what amounted to a vacant field. I worked hard on this project, sacrificing a lot of sleep. What I did included a range of things, such as making adjustments for the import of building materials from different countries and their delivery to the construction site, assigning tasks to more than 300 construction workers, and providing supervisors visiting the site from Japan and the West with appropriate accommodations. I really enjoyed giving it all I had toward fulfilling the goal, and it provided me with an opportunity to speed up my own development.
While working very hard, I also enjoyed doing triathlons and through this hobby I met some entrepreneurs. Inspired by their way of life, I began to think, “I want to take on the challenge of launching a business in the future.” The turning point came in 2014, when I learned that the Act on Securing Safety of Regenerative Medicine would be enforced in Japan. It reminded me of the fact that Sumitomo Corporation had originally decided to construct the wood processing factory due to a revision of the related law. Whereas some competitors withdrew from the market because of the revision, we at Sumitomo Corporation continued to embrace challenges and didn’t give up. As a result, the company made a large profit. Convinced by this argument, I decided to “graduate” from Sumitomo Corporation and leave to launch a new business.
After quitting the company, I established Cellsource Co., Ltd. to start providing regenerative medicine-related services. In 2019 the company was listed on TSE Mothers (presently TSE Growth) and in October 2023 it was moved to TSE Prime.
I have been sharing information within SC2 (Sumitomo Corporation Start-up Community), a network of entrepreneurs who are all Sumitomo Corporation alumni. Because we all formerly worked for Sumitomo Corporation, we are good at supporting one another and I am personally benefiting from their support both in terms of my business and my mental well-being. It will be great if we can continue to inspire one another for our mutual growth going forward.