A Highschooler's Takeaways from Interviewing Two Individuals from GMS's Upper Management

This note was probably one of the more challenging ones to write in terms of both the individuals that I was interviewing as well as summarizing all the information that I got.

I interviewed two people today: the vice president/CFO, Oshima-san (大島さん), and the corporate officer/CEO of the Cambodia branch of GMS (at the moment), Danjo-san (檀上さん).

To be fair, I was slightly nervous, going into the interview. I was worried that I might waste their time out of their busy schedule or ask something that wasn’t really appropriate to ask. I

Interview with Oshima-san

My first interview of the day was with the vice president, Oshima-san.

I was expecting an online interview so it was a bit of a surprise when I heard that he will be coming to have it in person. However, I was actually pretty happy with this change. Most people would most likely be even more nervous to have an in-person interview with a person high up the administrative ladder, but I feel that there’s something special about talking face to face and getting a feel for the energy exhibited by the person you talk to.

For this interview, I was pretty lost in terms of what to ask. It wasn’t that I didn’t have any questions at all. It was more of the contrary. I had many questions that I wanted to ask, from about his life in general, to more specifics like what kind of philosophy he has in his managerial work or his life in general. I just couldn't choose, but I ended up asking the one major question I wanted to ask: how he’s in the position that he’s in now.

As a high school student and an upcoming senior, I’m at the point in my life where I have to start making serious decisions about how I want to traverse my life. Therefore, one of my major personal objectives interning at GMS is to also gain inspiration from the people working here. It’s not a common occurrence to be able to talk to working people and people who’ve established themselves in the business world, so I really wanted to get the most out of it.

In the case with Oshima-san, given my personal interests in the financial world, knowing that his forte was gathering investments for the company, I wanted to get to know more about the hows and whys regarding his life story.

He told me a lot about his career and why he’s both interested in the particular job that he does and in trying to make a difference in the world. Out of all the things I heard, I felt that the most striking point of the interview was about how he got to know GMS.

He told me that his story with GMS all started when he accidentally met the president of GMS, Nakashima-san, at the airport when coming back from the US. Apparently, they were acquaintances from his previous job, and from that encounter they started having a discussion about Nakashima-san’s new venture and about how the company needed someone with Oshima-san’s expertise, leading to Oshima-san’s eventual transfer to GMS.

Regardless of their previous connection, from my perspective at least, it did look like some kind of fate in their accidental meeting at the airport. While this aspect may not have been the most important or significant out of the many things Oshima-san told me during our discussion, it did really make me think about how you never know what can happen in life. Heck, even in my life, I can see how many small, seemingly insignificant events all mixed together to make me the person I am today, so this story, in particular, made me make a small internal memo to try to be conscious of the small opportunities or starting points that I encounter in my life.

Aside from this, he gave me a lot of advice. One of them was to have a basis. In the case of Oshima-san, it was probably his deep interest in optimization and his character, but he went on to say that not enough people have a basis in what they do in life.

So on that day, as I went home on the busy train, I asked myself why. This might not have been what he meant by ‘basis’, but I started by asking myself why I’m interested in the financial world, why I’m interning at GMS, and so on.

Of course, to a certain extent, I already had answers to these questions. However, I tried a little deeper, closer to my soul, asking myself why I care. And to be fair, I didn’t really come up with anything special. I mean, how would I? It’s roughly a 50-minute train ride from Shinagawa to Fujisawa. If I could come up with something in that timespan, it wouldn’t be hard. But if I took anything away from that, it would be to give it some thought. Some more thought, at least. Maybe it would help me with my college decisions.

Going back to the interview, as time started to run out, the interview was unfortunately cut short. However, Oshima-san did say that we would have an opportunity to do so on the 16th when the company will be conducting an off-site event at Atami, so I’m looking forward to that.

Interview with Danjo-san

For this interview, I actually felt a little guilty. I saw him busy with a conference call or something to nature from the morning till my time to interview him, so I was slightly worried whether it would be fine to conduct the interview since he must have been really tired at that point.

But, given how this interview is on this post, the interview did happen.

As for the interview itself, I felt it was more like a semi-lecture kind of interview in a good way. And just to make it clear, I meant lecture, as in an educational talk and not the other reprimanding or scolding type of talk. I learned for probably the first time in my life about the company hierarchy in Japan, like what 本部長 equates to and the differences between 役員会 and 取締役会), and I also gained a lot from listening to Danjo-san’s mindset/philosophy to succeed.

The interview started off pretty typically, with the first question that I asked Danjo-san being about his job description and what he does. I was informed beforehand that he’s at the top of the Cambodia branch and that he’s also a corporate officer at GMS, but those job descriptions weren’t really explanatory for me (most probably due to my lack of knowledge but more so on the fact that they were in Japanese).

This was the part where he explained to me, in detail, the corporate structure at GMS and about the job titles in Japanese. Like an actual class, he wrote on the whiteboard on the wall, how the corporate structure works at GMS, each division/committee’s roles, and responsibilities, and how they all work together. I knew the basic structure for companies, where there’s the board of directors, shareholders committees, different branches and divisions within the company and etc., but seeing all unfold in a clear to understand diagram and getting that link between the English and Japanese titles was really helpful. I know that, while it was about how it works in GMS and may not be the same in other corporations, it cleared things up for me and helped fix a few incorrect misconceptions that I had.

Here, he also mentioned his struggles when working with Japanese titles due to their ambiguity and made a point to explain that job titles didn’t really mean much, aside from manners and the like. And I think this was where the conversation segwayed into his mindset/philosophy in his life and career.

He talked about one instance, in particular, when working in Cambodia, which I don’t think that I’m at liberty to explain in detail, but given the nature of GMS, there needs to be a certain level of trust between GMS and the financial institutions that partner or work with GMS. And this was especially the case in the starting days of GMS where there were few to no examples of previous success and not really much to support or be the foundation for that trust. So in the process of trying to get that first partnership, Danjo-san mentioned that it was really important to create a connection between the person who you’re trying to work with, and build that sense of trust, not only from the work aspect but also from yourself, in your character, your demeanor, your appearance and etc.

In the case of Danjo-san, he told me that the one thing that he’ll always make sure to do is to have a professional attire (like wearing a formal suit every day). This is apparently to look sharp and look professional. But he told me that it could be anything. I just need to have at least one thing that I take care of or take care to do.

Of course, only that wouldn’t really amount to much, and it's a lot of different things that all come together to build that, but I think Danjo-san wanted to tell me that it's that starting point which is important (sorry if I was wrong).

He also used an example of how a lively, energetic, and friendly tone of speaking can be attractive in a business environment (or any other environment), so I think that’s where I might want to start. 

I'm sort of introverted by nature and I tend to speak slightly quietly, especially when near people with who I’ve not gotten comfortable or am slightly nervous, so that's probably something I should start with to give a better impression of myself.

Conclusion

All in all, this isn’t just about these two interviews, but I am starting to see that my idea of what I want to do in the future has slowly started to solidify, as I conduct more and more interviews and interact with more and more individuals at GMS. Getting to know how each individual became who they are today, knowing about what their job is, and their interests/passions, all have helped me see numerous paths that I could potentially follow in the future, while simultaneously giving me different mindsets that I can consider when dealing with the struggles in my life.

Furthermore, especially in the case of these two interviews, I’ve gotten a lot of tips and they have opened my eyes to a lot of different mindsets and perspectives on how one should engage and/or pursue life.

For the most part, when I think about it afterward, what Oshima-san said about having a basis, or Danjou-san’s point on taking care of how you express yourself to others is relatively simple. It really does make sense when you think about it. If you don’t have a basis or a foundation in life, then things that you do may not have the same weight as those who do. If you can’t express yourself to others in a positive manner, well no wonder that you aren’t taken in a positive light.

Maybe it's those simple, small things in life that people don’t really see, but makes a huge difference.

Of course, these things may probably be the simplest part of your life, while fundamentally being the hardest to change. Simple yet difficult. It sounds kind of contradictory but I guess that's the same with anything in life, being never fully white or fully black and always grey to a certain extent.

So that was my key takeaway from this interview. Inspiring in its own way and philosophical in another.