Wednesday, March 10, 2021 | 7:00–8:00 PM (EST)

Thursday, March 11, 2021 | 9:00–10:00 AM (Japan Time)

Featuring:

Sarah Lubman, Acting Chief Communications Officer, SoftBank Group International

Annamarie Sasagawa, Director, Corporate Culture (Global), Kao Corporation

Moderated by:

Alicia Ogawa, Director, Project on Japanese Corporate Governance and Stewardship, Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia Business School

What you'll learn:

• Given Japan's declining population and low levels of economic growth relative to the rest of the world, the continued success of many Japanese publicly traded companies will depend upon their ability to grow their businesses outside their home market.
• Japanese firms' successes and challenges in globalizing their businesses are often explained in cultural terms. We will focus our discussion on more concrete issues such as branding, HR management processes, compensation policies, board of directors, investor relations departments, and legal systems.
• Stock prices are always a leading indicator of progress---in this case, stock prices will reflect the degree of progress in increasing revenues and human resources from outside Japan. What are some of the specific challenges or opportunities that Japanese firms face in terms of dealing with foreign shareholders?

About the Speakers:

Sarah Lubman is Acting Chief Communications Officer for SoftBank Group International, which she joined in February 2019. She was previously a Partner at Brunswick Group, the global communications advisory firm, and before that was a journalist for 17 years, with an extensive background in Asia. Sarah worked for major media outlets in Tokyo and Beijing and was a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, National/Foreign Editor at the San Jose Mercury News, and Beijing correspondent for National Public Radio and United Press International. Sarah graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California-Berkeley with a B.A. in Japanese and Religious Studies and has an M.A. in Japanese literature from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is on the board of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship Program.

Annamarie Sasagawa is Director, Corporate Culture (Global) at Kao Corporation, where she is responsible for facilitating Kao’s global expansion by aligning the organization around shared purpose and values.

Prior to her role at Kao, she was a consumer ethnographer helping global FMCG and technology clients identify value shifts among Japanese consumers. An anthropologist by training, her academic expertise focusses on how the dual imperatives of diversity and inclusion and global expansion are reshaping talent strategy in Japan.

She is also an MBA instructor at the University of Tsukuba and governor of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan.

Admission and Contact:

This is a free event. You must register for the webinar to receive the login details. Participants will receive a link to access the live webinar upon registration.

If you have questions about the event, please contact us at cjeb@gsb.columbia.edu. For more information about other CJEB events, visit our website or contact cjeb@gsb.columbia.edu.