Houston, Texas, where I am currently based, is a city known as the "Energy Capital" as many global energy-related companies have their bases there. A wide range of Japanese companies related to oil and gas, including energy-related companies and general trading companies that handle oil and gas, as well as manufacturers of petrochemicals and construction machinery essential for mining, have expanded into the city. I am currently in charge of supporting these Japanese companies in solving their management issues, mainly through lending services.
I have been working at the Houston branch for a year and a half. In recent years, M&A by Japanese companies has been very active here. My area of responsibility is southern Texas and Louisiana, where Houston is located, but the local companies that my clients have acquired are located all over the US, so before the COVID-19 pandemic, I would fly around the US two to three times a month, from New York in the east to Arizona in the west, and from Texas, where I am in the south, to Minnesota in the north, to hold business meetings with clients in English.

Ever since I was little, I had dreamed of working overseas. I started studying English on my own in junior high school. I loved The Beatles, and started by listening to their songs and writing out the lyrics to memorize them. Until high school, I attended cram schools and studied on my own using textbooks, but with a view to working overseas, I wanted to be in an environment where I could learn English thoroughly, so I decided to go on to Aoyama Gakuin University.
During my university days, I naturally concentrated on my English classes and also joined a seminar taught by Professor Baba Yumiko, who taught English. I also taught English classes as a part-time cram school instructor, and being on the teaching side also helped me to deepen my understanding of English. During the summer vacation of my second year of university, I studied abroad in Canada for one month. Although it was a short period of time, I think experiencing the culture, society, and life of an English-speaking country firsthand was a valuable learning experience.
The English skills I developed as a student are helping me in my current work in the United States, and they were also very useful in my work in Japan. I feel that I was able to demonstrate my abilities in particular in a large-scale project for a foreign company that I was in charge of in Japan. Every word of the English contract had to be examined carefully, and I exchanged emails in English every day for several months between three cities: New York, where the client's headquarters is, London, where the client's legal staff is, and Tokyo, where I am. During conference calls, we sometimes listened to both the English and Japanese translations by the interpreter to ensure that the content of the discussion, which included expressions specific to the financial industry, was conveyed accurately. Without my English skills, this project would not have progressed at all, and in the end, I was awarded by the bank's president, making it a memorable job. I also feel that this experience was what led me to seize the opportunity to be posted to the United States.

As I mentioned earlier, when I first entered university, I was surprised at the difference in awareness between my classmates and myself, and felt a little intimidated. As I strived to be on par with them, I began to have my own idea of what a leader should be.
The hint that helped me shape my image of a leader came from a conversation I had with my boss at the cram school where I was working part-time. "A truly excellent leader is someone who has the power to motivate people who are better than themselves. Wouldn't it be great if I could become that kind of person?" Those words from my boss struck a chord with me, as I was surrounded by people who were smarter and more proactive than me and had been thinking about what kind of person I should become. I digested that advice and thought deeply about "how I can become an excellent leader" in order to make it my own.

After that, as I continued to act with the awareness of "connecting people," my respected peers began to recognize me as "the leader," and I was able to experience serving as a seminar leader and the representative of a seminar alliance that collaborated with seminars from other universities. I believe that this awareness has led to my current attitude toward work, which is to care about customers and to value heart-to-heart communication.

While working in the US, I feel that tolerance towards failure is important for Japan to further demonstrate its presence in the world. Japanese companies have a strong tendency to view failure negatively, and tend to be reluctant to take on the challenge of acquiring venture companies or starting in-house ventures. In that case, it will be difficult to create something that will thrive in the new era. In recent years, this attitude has been gradually changing, but I think that Japanese companies will be able to demonstrate their strengths even more if they have the temperament to say "nice try" in response to failure.

Currently, I work at the front line, but from now on, I would like to experience the joy of working with subordinates. The ideal relationship would be one where we communicate well without being bound by hierarchical relationships, and where my subordinates want to work together to achieve our goals. Having subordinates will broaden my field, and my dream for the future is to make more customers happy.