|
HIGASHI WEST:
ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN JAPAN AND THE WEST – HARNESSING THE
DIFFERENCES?
DATE AND TIME
Thursday 23rd May 2002
5.30-7.30
LOCATION
Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Japan House, 13/14 Cornwall
Terrace, London NW1 4QP
Nearest Tube Station: Baker Street
Once again, the
spotlight of this ongoing sequence of seminars continues to focus
on the specifics of Japanese economic reconstruction. And the
present seminar is very much of a natural successor to questions
raised during the previous event.
In terms of active
venture capitalists, the impression is that the Japanese economy is
nothing like as well-provided as its US and European counterparts,
but there does seem to be growing evidence of an emerging –
albeit small scale – home grown venture community. What is likely
to be its role in the future? With the banks suffering their
current travails, despite having successfully weathered any
end-of-March difficulties, there must be considerable doubt as to
how much they can be relied upon to provide the requisite financial
support to likely emerging companies.
And then there are
the companies themselves. Despite METI’s apparent acceptance of
the necessity to nurture SMEs as the most probable engines of
future growth, what is the reality beyond the entrepreneurial
rhetoric? Moreover, to what extent have those same SMEs borne the
brunt of the very real pressures for change that Japan is currently
undergoing? If the going is tough for indigenous SMEs, how much
tougher does it get for foreign companies trying to establish a
foothold in the world’s second largest economy? Such are the
starting points for our debate. This evening’s debate will be
strictly practical, centring on two very specific case studies and
featuring companies from two very different disciplines. We would
hope to throw a more theoretical light on this topic during a later
seminar in the series. And Higashi West? The significance
– and the comparative resonances - will doubtless become clearer
as the seminar progresses.
From the outset,
the organisers are keen to emphasise the fact that the views
expressed during the presentations are strictly the speakers’
own.
SPEAKERS
Speaker 1: Ms. Clare Ridley, Electrocomponents
Speaker 2: Mr. Shinichi Tamura, President, CEO and
Co-founder of Sosei Co. Ltd.
CO-CHAIRS
Ms. Bonnie Williams, Managing Director, Waterbridge International
Mr. Hiromasa Toda, Director Japanese Business Development, Euler &
Hermes International.
SPEAKERS’ &
CO-CHAIRS’ BACKGROUNDS
Ms. Clare Ridley
Clare has worked for
Electrocomponents plc (a multi-national, high service level
distributor and FTSE 100 company) in business development since 1987,
with a particular focus on the evaluation of strategic geographical
markets around the world. She is responsible for the conception,
planning and management of activities up to the launch of RS
Components operations. Over the past 12 years Clare worked in the US,
Italy and Japan, evaluating the markets, entry approaches, business
planning and then building the start-up teams for the successful
launches into Italy in 1992 and Japan in 1999.
As Electrocomponents
looked to expand its global presence, the significant Japanese market
became a priority worthy of exploration. Clare was accepted as a
member of the EU’s Executive Training Programme (ETP) to Japan and,
in 1994, moved to live in Tokyo. The main purpose of the move to Japan
was to more properly understand the dynamics of the Japanese market
and to assess the viability of the RS business model within this
potentially huge, but notoriously difficult, market. Clare returned to
the UK in late ’96 to lead the development team responsible for the
planning and development work necessary to both distil a winning
business plan for the start-up, and to secure corporate support and
approval.
Following board
approval in 1997, Clare led the start-up development team responsible
for recruitment, training, site location (Yokohama) and set-up,
logistics, product management, systems, and Sales and Marketing of the
Greenfield RS operation. At launch in March 1999, RS Japan represented
a £30 million investment with breakeven targeted for year five, and
employing 50 staff. Two years on, led by Jay Yamaguchi, General
Manager, RS Japan and its 100 employees represent over one per cent of
group sales, selling to over 20,000 engineers across Japan. Still the
only high-service distributor in the country, RS Japan is on track to
become a £100 million company in its 10th year of operation.
Clare has been a
speaker for the DTI, British Trade Partners International, JEBA and at
Farnham Castle. She sits on the Japan Advisory Board for British Trade
Partners International. Clare now enjoys living with her husband and
young son in Oxford.
Mr. Shinichi Tamura
Shinichi Tamura
certainly comes particularly well-qualified to explore the intricacies
of – and the interactions between – venture capital and corporate
entities in Japan, the US and the UK. Having graduated from Tokyo
University with an M.Sc in biochemistry and a major in Cultural
Anthropology, Tamura-san moved on to become a Representative Director
(CEO) of Genentech Japan. He has also worked for Fujisawa
Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. in a number of positions within Corporate
Planning and Development, and has acted as advisor to a variety of
pharmaceutical companies – Genentech, GenPharm, Geron, IDEC,
Pharmacyclics and Vernalis amongst others. The company Shinichi
founded, Sosei, is nothing if not ambitious in intent, and is well on
its way to achieving its aim of becoming the first Japanese
biopharmaceutical company casting a truly global trawl. Sosei has
secured core products via its distinctive drug re-profiling project (DRP),
by in-licensing compounds at late-stages of development and through
its own internal R&D programmes in collaboration with other
biopharmaceutical companies and universities both in Japan and in the
West. Moreover, the company maintains an active programme to add other
promising drug candidates to its core products pipeline. In summary,
Sosei’s core activities include R&D, drug re-profiling, the
encouragement of joint ventures, and technology transfer. A related
company in the technology/information arena, and named Kosei, is
active in London. As for the etymological roots of the company names,
Sosei and Kosei …that really is an historical avenue worth asking
Shinichi to explore!
Ms. Bonnie Williams
As very much a
long-term participant in the affairs of the Japan Society and an
impressive number of London-based Anglo-Japanese exchanges, Bonnie
requires little introduction. Born and raised in Sendai, in northern
Honshu, Bonnie graduated from the Wharton Business School at the
University of Pennsyslvania in 1978, after which she worked for JP
Morgan in New York, London and Tokyo. Bonnie is the founder and
Managing Director of Waterbridge International, which consults and
trains on management and communication issues. Away from the day job,
of late Bonnie seems to have developed somewhat of a second career as
a television language guru, notching up a number of unhealthily early
morning appearances.
Mr. Hiromasa Toda
Toda-san is a graduate
of Kyoto University, where he gained his BA in Economics and, later,
his MA in Business Studies. After careers as a Credit Analyst,
Accounts and Forex Manager, etc. at various Japanese and foreign
banks, he joined Banque Indosuez as Osaka Branch Manager in 1984. He
was later appointed director as well as becoming a member of the Japan
Credit Committee.
In 1989 Hiromasa moved
to Amsterdam to join ABN Bank NV as Vice-President & General
Manager- Japan Desk, and was responsible for Japanese corporate
business in Europe. Three years later he became executive director,
Willis Corroon Group, plc. in London, with responsibility for the
development of Japanese credit, life and non-life insurance business
world-wide. In 1999 Hiromasa left Willis and became a management
consultant working for the UK and European subsidiaries of major
Japanese companies. At the same time he continued to lecture on
Japanese business at the University of Amsterdam, Euro-Japan Centre,
and Economische Hogeschool St. Aloysius. He also wrote regularly for a
Japanese business magazine and newspaper.
Hiromasa joined Euler
International in 2001 as Director – Japanese Business Development.
|
General Section
