Leadership and Corporate Life

12 July 2012

6:00 – 7:45pm, followed by a drinks reception to 8:45pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

With the global economy in the doldrums, companies everywhere face difficult challenges. Japanese corporate leaders have two decades of experience with a sluggish economy, and may be able to offer lessons for their UK counterparts about how to respond to the current difficult environment. British companies are being urged by the government to export more, particularly to the Far East, echoing Japan’s experience, that exports have indeed been a relative bright spot in recent years. But the Japanese corporate sector isn’t in great shape either. Iconic exporters like Sony are struggling to compete with Asian and American rivals, while the Olympus scandal has reminded us that Japan still has deep-rooted governance and audit problems.

So what should corporate leaders in both countries have uppermost in their minds? Our two speakers are well-placed to comment. As well as being former Chairman of Airbus Japan, Glen Fukushima is well-known as a commentator on a wide range of issues relevant to the Japanese corporate sector – from trade policy to the educational system. Stuart Lyons, meanwhile, has broad experience of the UK corporate sector. He was formerly CEO of Royal Doulton (for whom Japan is an important market), and is currently Chairman of furniture manufacturer Airsprung Furniture group. This is the fifth seminar in our 2012 series Leadership: People and Power in the UK and Japan.

 

Glen S. Fukushima

Glen S. Fukushima was President and CEO (2005 – 2010) and Chairman and Director (2010 – 2012) of Airbus Japan. He has worked in Japan since 1990 as a senior executive in four US multinationals and served as Vice President and President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. He has served on numerous Japanese, American, and European corporate boards and advisory councils and is a Trustee of Keizai Doyukai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives). From 1985 to 1990, he worked in Washington DC as Director for Japanese Affairs and as Deputy Assistant USTR for Japan and China at the Office of the United States Trade Representative. His book The Politics of US-Japan Trade Conflict (in Japanese) was awarded the Masayoshi Ohira Prize in 1993. He was educated at Stanford (BA), Harvard (MA, JD), Keio (Stanford-Keio Exchange Scholar), and Tokyo (Fulbright and Japan Foundation Fellow).

Stuart Lyons

Stuart Lyons is Chairman of Airsprung Group PLC, the furniture and mattress manufacturer. After graduating in Classics from King’s College, Cambridge, he joined the retail and clothing group United Drapery Stores, where he rose to be managing director. Following a takeover, he became chief executive of Royal Doulton, where he led both the business itself and the industry confederation, receiving a CBE for services to the china industry. He has been a member of the Ordnance Survey Review Committee, the Monopolies & Mergers Commission, and the Council of Keele University, a governor of Staffordshire University and Chairman of the West Midlands Development Agency. More recently, he assisted the Conservative opposition as a chief policy advisor and authored three influential publications for the Centre for Policy Studies, Can Consignia Deliver?, A Department for Business and Harnessing our Genius.

Dr Simon Learmount (Chair)

Dr Simon Learmount is University Lecturer in Corporate Governance at the University of Cambridge. He has recently been awarded the University’s Pilkington Prize, which recognises excellence in teaching. Prior to joining the University of Cambridge, Dr Learmount was founder and Managing Director of Saxoncourt Ltd, Director of Sales and Marketing at International Packaging Ltd and Shimomura Fellow at the Development Bank of Japan. His main teaching and research interests lie in the areas of international corporate governance reform and management practice; currently he is particularly interested in the training and development of senior executives and company directors. He has consulted to a number of organisations around the world, including the Tokyo Stock Exchange, BT, Rolls Royce, Coca Cola, BP, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China and Roche. He has lived and worked in Japan, the US, France and Spain.

Women and Leadership

22 May 2012

6:00 – 7:45pm, followed by a drinks reception to 8:45pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

The fourth seminar in our 2012 series Leadership: People and Power in the UK and Japan looks at Women and Leadership.  Japan remains one of the OECD’s poorest performers on gender equality issues, despite numerous attempts over the years to improve the situation. Only 11.3% of Japanese Diet members are women (a proportion recently surpassed by South Korea, with 14.7%). A survey of listed companies by Toyo Keizai last year found that women accounted for just 1.4% of management positions. And what about the UK, which elected its first female Prime Minister over 30 years ago? Even here, men in leadership positions still far outnumber women, and the gender debate is very much alive. Do we need quotas for female representation at the highest levels?  Our Japanese speaker is Dr Wakako Hironaka, one of the few women at the top level of Japanese politics, who became a State Minister almost 20 years ago, at a time when it was very difficult for women to succeed in this field. Our UK speaker is Suzi Digby OBE, Founder and Principal of The Voices Foundation, well-known as both a charity leader and a choral conductor. The seminar will be chaired by Joanna Pitman, former Tokyo Bureau Chief of The Times.

Dr Wakako Hironaka

Dr Wakako Hironaka is a former Member of the House of Councillors (1986-2010) and a former Vice-Chair of the Democratic Party of Japan.  Among her many roles, she has served as State Minister, Director-General of the Environment Agency (1993-94), Chair of the Committee on Fundamental National Policies, and Chair of the EU-Japan Parliamentary Group. Dr Hironaka has also been active internationally, as a Vice-Chair of Global Environmental Action, Chair of GLOBE Japan, and member of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, the Earth Charter Initiative, and International Science Advisory Board of UNESCO. She currently serves as Director-General of GEA, and as a Board Member of the Energy and Resources Institute, Earth Charter Commission and PA International Foundation. She was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor Akihito in 2010.

Suzi Digby OBE (Lady Eatwell)

Suzi Digby OBE (Lady Eatwell) is an internationally renowned Choral Conductor and Music Educator. Born in Japan, Suzi lived internationally before settling in London/Cambridge. She has trailblazed the revival of singing in UK schools and the community over two decades. Suzi founded and runs four influential arts/education organisations: The Voices Foundation (the UK’s leading Music Education Charity); Voce Chamber Choir (one of London’s finest young Chamber Choirs); Vocal Futures (Nurturing young [16-22] audiences for Classical Music); and Artsworks (Leadership and ‘Accelerated Learning’ for Corporates). She is a Professor at the University of Southern California, where she is creating a Masters in Arts Leadership. As a conductor, Suzi’s 2011 debut with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Vocal Futures’ Bach’s St Matthew Passion) was met with outstanding critical acclaim. Suzi is Trustee of Music in Country Churches, among other music and education charities. She is President of the Incorporated Society of Musicians and was Acting Music Director of Queens’ College, University of Cambridge. Amongst many TV appearances, she was judge in the BBC1 show, Last Choir Standing.

Joanna Pitman (chair)

Joanna Pitman was educated at Cambridge University where she read Japanese Studies. On graduating, she worked for a number of financial magazines in London before joining The Times. In 1989 she was appointed Tokyo Bureau Chief of The Times, a post she held for six years covering all news out of Japan and major stories in the region. Back in London, she became a writer on international affairs for The Times and did a series of major political interviews for the paper. Changing course, she spent ten years as an arts critic on The Times, and then when her children were older, she joined the strategic intelligence company, Hakluyt & Co. She is a trustee of Somerset House and of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. She has written two books: On Blondes(2004) and The Raphael Trail (2006).

BOOKING FORM

Political Leadership in the UK and Japan

24 April 2012

6:00 – 7:45pm, followed by a drinks reception to 8:45pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

The next seminar in our 2012 series Leadership: People and Power in the UK and Japan looks at political leadership. The governing party changed in Japan in 2009 and the UK in 2010. In both cases, the new ruling party had spent a prolonged period out of power, and its leaders have had to forge a coalition to achieve a majority. Japan has plenty of experience of coalition governments, but its political leaders have often been criticised for ineffective leadership, and faced particular challenges following the earthquake last spring. What can the two countries learn from each other about political leadership? And to what extent are different leadership styles required by the different institutional set-ups in each country?

Taro Kono

Taro Kono is a Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) politician and a 5th term Member of the House of Representatives in the Diet. Born in 1963, Kono graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service. While in Washington, DC, Kono served for then Democratic Congressman Richard Shelby of Alabama for two years. Kono joined Fuji Xerox in 1986, moved to Fuji Xerox Asia Pacific in Singapore in 1991, and subsequently served as Managing Director at Nippon Tanshi from 1993 to 1996. Kono served in Prime Minister Koizumi’s final government as Senior Vice Minister of Justice from 2005 to 2006. Until the LDP defeat in the General Election in August 2009, Kono was the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of the Representatives. In September 2009 he ran for the Leadership of the LDP and lost to Sadakazu Tanigaki.

Professor Keith Grint

Professor Keith Grint is Professor of Public Leadership and Management at Warwick University. He is also a Visiting Research Professor at Lancaster University, an Associate Fellow of the Saïd Business School, a Fellow of the Windsor Leadership Trust, a Fellow of the Sunningdale Institute, and a Visiting Scholar at Sydney University. He is a founding co-editor of the Sage journalLeadership, and also co-edits the Sage Handbook of Leadership. He has written on various aspects of leadership, including: leadership theory (Leadership: Limits and Possibilities, 2005); historical aspects of leadership (The Arts of Leadership, 2001); leadership in the military (Leadership, Management and Command: Rethinking D-Day, 2008); and leadership in the public sector (The Public Leadership Challenge) (forthcoming) (ed. with Stephen Brookes). He wrote the literature review for ‘Strengthening Leadership in the Public Sector’ (2000) a project of the Performance and Innovation Unit (Cabinet Office).

Leadership and History in the UK and Japan

24 January 2012

6:00 – 7:45pm, followed by a drinks reception to 8:45pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

This first seminar in the 2012 series, Leadership: People and Power in the UK and Japan, will draw on examples from history to set the scene for a year-long discussion of leadership issues in both countries. While lack of leadership is a recurring theme in analyses of Japanese politics, the sharing of power in Britain’s coalition government is giving rise to different concerns. The speakers will contextualise such contemporary debates by reflecting on past crises and successes of leadership and the importance of leadership as a force for change. Subsequent seminars will consider the roles that may be played by individuals and organisations in political, corporate and other spheres in influencing the future direction of society.