Yuichiro ‘Yui’ Kamikawa is a Japanese national who spent his childhood between America and Japan. He talks about the unexpected journey of self-discovery on Exeter’s One Planet MBA.
Yui, 32, studied Chemical Engineering at Princeton University and after graduating returned to Japan to work for Mars Inc. on their fast-track graduate programme, “I was in logistics and manufacturing for three years. Mainly doing the manufacturing of pet foods such as Pedigree and Whiskers. They sent me to South Africa for a year to a factory, and afterwards, my big job was to start up the operations of a new pilot plant in Japan.”
After three and a half years at Mars Yui “decided to leave the company and thought about going back to the U.S. to go to business school. I applied and was accepted to Harvard, Berkeley and Michigan, I went to visit and got the sense that it wasn’t the exact right fit. There was a difference from what I wanted and what they were offering.”
Yui decided not to go to business school, “I found the ‘business as usual’ stance from a sustainable point of view, to be a turn off. I didn’t want to only study driving profits and growth without a sense of the bigger picture.”
Having turned down three of the most highly ranked business schools in the world, Yui returned to Japan to run his own translation and intercultural communications business. “After two and a half years I felt there was a limitation to what I could do in the field so I decided to go back into the corporate world.”
Yui went to work for a Japanese subsidiary of German company Krones AG, a job which married together Yui’s expertise in manufacturing and intercultural communications. “I got a couple of big contracts, got great experience and the whole time I was thinking about how corporations could be better. Environmental concerns taken into consideration along with corporate concerns.”
In March of this year the earthquakes hit Japan. “All my friends were talking about how scary it was and what it meant for society and then the nuclear power station exploded. The youth were saying how much had to change. What could be the next step in corporate sustainability?”
Yui began looking for different things that he could learn and study and found Exeter’s One Planet MBA. “I wasn’t looking specifically at MBA programs but more about how I could learn about sustainability. This program was the only program which put business and sustainability together in a way which was very convincing.”
Having discovered the course in June and having done a lot of research online about the course, the corporate sponsors and the WWF, Yui says he made a gut feeling type of decision.
The course has been “great in two different aspects; firstly the sustainability aspect and secondly the personal development aspect. They have a strong focus on personal reflection and want you to tap into your natural strengths. It is a very forward-thinking way of looking at leadership and is a powerful opportunity. I didn’t expect this new way of personal development and it is very effective and exciting.”
After graduating next year Yui wants to go into technical innovation and project management without losing the thread of intercultural communication expertise he has developed over many years. “I would like to stay in the UK or Europe, I was in Japan for ten years so I have had that experience.”
Having recently read about the struggle for MBAs to gain respect in Japan I asked Yui about this. “I would say that it is true that MBAs are undervalued in Japan. A few years back there was a very high premium on MBAs but on the whole there is the whole language barrier, geographical barrier and so to go to a good school takes a lot of effort. Traditionally, Japanese companies value hands on experience much more than a degree. A few years of experience could negate a degree.” Yui believes however that his MBA with a focus on sustainability would be valued in Japan as it is such an innovative degree.
After the devastation experienced by Japan, Yui says that the overwhelming reaction has been one of resilience. “Resilience of both the country and its people, they are really starting to recover. It was hard as first the Yen was strong so many companies had been forced to leave Japan, the earthquake was a huge smack in the face, a real double whammy. But people have reacted well and I think there will be new centres in Japan, new technologies supported by a tremendously deep knowledge about renewable energies and environmental technologies that is unpublicised.
"There are tiny businesses popping up which have new ideas which will grow over the next two to three years.” So the future of Japan is going to see big businesses thriving on lots of new creative ingenuity.
Yui thinks he will stay within the UK and Europe for the foreseeable future as after ten years in Japan he feels he needs a new experience. Ultimately he will set up his own company building on his technical and intercultural communications expertise, but he believes he needs a few more years in the corporate world.
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