Thank you. I am pleased to meet you today!

Until I graduated from university, I was living in my hometown of Sapporo and playing soccer continuously. I stopped being a soccer player in my first year of university, and started coaching and managing the club I was part of when I was an elementary school student. I was so busy coaching soccer and working part-time that I did not really focus on my schoolwork. (laughs) After finishing university, I landed a job at an IT company and relocated to Tokyo. I joined in February after graduation and stayed with them for about five years. Initially, I was a programmer, testing functions and enhancing system performance. As I honed my skills, I transitioned into a systems engineer role. In the final year, I served as an assistant to the project manager, where I handled tasks close to IT consulting.

At first, I was thinking of staying in Sapporo, so I was looking at companies in various industries located there, like IT and advertising. I was getting a bit anxious since nothing was being finalized, but then I happened to attend a company information session for new graduates, and someone from the company just happened to talk to me. Later on, I had an interview, and things progressed smoothly from there. The person who interviewed me was really wonderful, so I chose the company because of both the IT aspect and the great people. Because of that, I am actually kind of surprised that I am working in Tokyo now. (laughs) Back then, I was not looking at the consulting industry at all. I thought the IT career path started with being a programmer, then becoming a systems engineer, and ultimately ending up in IT consulting. So I felt like I should aim for that final stage, and after starting my job, I began keeping consulting in mind.

I had the image of consulting being "trendy" and having an "intense workload." Also, I thought it seemed like you can earn a lot of money doing that. (laughs) I used to think that entering a consulting firm had a pretty high barrier to entry, but now it feels like a much more familiar and approachable field.

I did not dislike my job in my previous company, so I registered on job sites casually. I decided to explore opportunities by talking to companies I found interesting in the scout emails I received. I specifically focused on the consulting industry. I also received a scout email from Berkeley and ended up talking with them. The email mentioned a casual meeting, so I thought it would be more like hearing an overview of the company. Suddenly, it turned into what seemed like a full interview with President Sumita. (laughs)

It was the people. President Sumita is a cool, charismatic leader. What you want to do at work is important, but I believe that who you work with is even more important. I felt that working close to President Sumita would be a huge plus for me. I had a desire to witness the process of passionate people creating a consulting firm from scratch. Plus, since the team is still small, the opportunity to be one of the main members seemed appealing to me. While I understand that it may be challenging with a small team, I see it as a great opportunity to gain a wide range of experience. I believe that the rewards and lessons learned from overcoming challenges will be significant, so I want to give my best effort in that aspect.

Since I will be working with different people depending on the client and the project, I am excited to see what kinds of people I’ll get to work with. It will also be interesting to see how the company grows, especially since we are in a phase of expanding Berkeley. As a consultant, your stakeholders are often people on the management side of the client’s business, so you need to be able to communicate effectively with them. That means having a solid base of knowledge and strong presentation skills is really important. The expectations are high, which makes me a bit nervous, but I see it as a challenge I need to tackle head on. At the end of the day, I just have to go for it.

In my view, being a good consultant means understanding things from the client's point of view. While an external perspective can be useful at times, my focus is on solving the problems and challenges our clients face. Building meaningful connections and relationships with people is something I aim to emphasize in my work.

My goal is to become a business owner by the age of 35. I do not have specific plans yet, but I aspire to be an entrepreneur and earn good money. Consulting allows me to think from a management perspective, absorbing knowledge and skills that align with my future dream. The added bonus is the opportunity to work with President Sumita.

I am the kind of person who wants to be cool. I believe if you are not making money and if you are not well put-together, one cannot be cool. So, I want to be cool in every aspect!