2021: Time to Transform, Adapt and Be Resilient

JanuaryCover Story2021

May 29

With each new year comes change. That’s what I wrote to begin my interview last January with GoogleJapan President Peter Fitzgerald, the incoming president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ). But just how much change 2020 would bring is something none of us could have anticipated. Fitzgerald deftly guided the chamber through a challenging year, and now passes the baton to Jenifer Rogers, general counsel Asia at IT services company Asurion.

Rogers has long ties to the ACCJ—her parents were on the board of governors in the 1980s—and has served on the board as a governor and vice president. That’s in addition to contributing as vice-chair of the Alternative Investment and Digital Economy Committees, as well as chairing the Election Governance Task Force and co-chairing the Digital Society Pillar.

A lawyer with a 30-year legal career in financial and IT services, Rogers is one of few non-Japanese women in a non-executive director role on the boards of listed Japanese companies, serving Mitsui & Co., Ltd., Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., and Nissan Motor Corporation.

The ACCJ Journal sat down with the Michigan native to learn more about the role the chamber has played in her life and how she sees the road ahead as we look at the business world beyond the pandemic.

What brought you to Japan?

My father was transferred here in 1980 to become president of Dow Chemical Japan, so I finished high school early and came over in January 1981. I ended up going to university here for two years. That gave me a foundation in the Japanese language and culture, and started a lifelong interest in Japan.

How did you become involved in the ACCJ?

I came back to Japan six years ago as a fourth-time returnee, and I hadn’t lived in Japan for 14 years. One of the things I really wanted to do was to reconnect with the business community. I also wanted to get back into learning about the topical matters that are important to the Japan–US dialogue.

I joined originally as an individual, and then I persuaded my company, Asurion, to join as a corporate member four years ago. Now we’re going to become a corporate sustaining member. So, I think I’ve seen a whole life cycle of membership.

How has the chamber helped your career?

When I first became a member—when I was here working for Merrill Lynch in the late 1990s—the ACCJ really helped me, as a lawyer, to get information from other people who were working in similar areas and in the finance community. It also gave me an opportunity to deliver presentations—in particular I covered the derivatives area—and that provided me with some professional visibility and helped me develop a public speaking style.

Also, importantly, it gave me a great network. One of the most powerful things about the chamber is that it hosts so many events and provides its members with so much information. This gave me a window into a much broader business community when I was a fairly young professional, and I really benefited from that.

Which of your ACCJ experiences stands out most?

Having been involved as a committee member since I returned to Japan in 2014, and on the board of governors since 2016, I have had a lot of great interactions. When I came back to Japan, I joined the Alternative Investment Committee as a vice-chair.

I went with Frank Packard, who’s still the chair, to meet with Hiromichi Mizuno—chief investment officer, at the time, of the Government Pension Investment Fund—to talk about sustainability and diversity. The ability of the ACCJ to arrange that meeting so seamlessly, and open a door for getting the insight of such an influential professional, really showed me the power of the chamber. And then getting to interview him live on stage made it a memorable moment—one of many—and sort of energized and inspired me. It opened my eyes to the access, influence, and potential you have as a member of the ACCJ.

What moved you to take that next step and run for president?

I have been very lucky to have met a lot of other professional women through the ACCJ. Very enthusiastic women—Royanne Doi and Amy Jackson come to mind—who have made me feel welcome. I felt very encouraged and decided that I would be open to trying for a larger role. So, it was really the kindness, support, and openness of not only these women but many other ACCJ members that encouraged me to get more involved in the leadership.

How might 2020 influence the chamber in 2021?

The way in which the ACCJ leadership—particularly President Peter Fitzgerald and Executive Director Laura Younger— responded with community outreach for best practices during the pandemic positioned the chamber as one of the go-to organizations for information sharing. Town halls that included staff from the US embassy gave people the access they were looking for. These events also provided a very easy forum for discussing and understanding how people were responding and what best practices they could apply to their own businesses.

The successful pivot to virtual outreach to members, and the openness of the ACCJ to partner with other chambers and groups as a cohost, not only cemented the involvement of active members, but opened tremendous avenues that we can utilize this year. We can broaden the reach of the chamber and boost interaction in ways that I’m quite passionate about. And it has been great for our One ACCJ initiative, providing better access for our members in Chubu and Kansai.

I believe there are other organizations we can work with to cohost events and get different access—and even some overseas access—to speakers from other countries. This will bring a new and welcome dynamic to what the chamber can offer its members. Embracing the virtual environment is really going to put us in a good position to transition back to networking and hybrid events that combine in-person and online participation. I don’t think we’re ever going to give up on the virtual element, because of the additional reach it has given us.

How can we strengthen networking in the new normal?

The chamber has pivoted to virtual in an incredible way, but one of our main tenets is to provide members with networking opportunities to make business connections, even across industries. This is something I’m quite passionate about; we really need to go back to some level of in-person interaction through hybrid events. We can give members the choice to participate in person or virtually, if they feel safer that way or it’s more convenient for them.

Everybody’s learning. Some other organizations and not-for-profits that I am involved in have already held very successful hybrid events. Having a limited number of people in the room makes a difference for speakers. When I have been on virtual panels, just looking at a computer the whole time, it’s really hard to feel engaged with your audience. So even if you can have just some people in the room, observing social distancing, you can still really connect. And I think for the virtual participants, it gives a better dynamic. You can see and feel the energy of the speaker in a different way.

And this goes beyond speaking events. Most of the organizations that host us have put in place very good Covid-19 protections that will allow us to do some mindful social events in a safe way this year to provide that important personal interaction safely. We really need to find a way to make it work so that members get the benefit of that important value proposition. We started this a bit at the end of last year, and I do think we need to continue.

How can the ACCJ best support members in 2021?

There’s still quite a bit of uncertainty about the pandemic and how it will pan out, but I like to think of 2021 as a year of transformation. Hopefully, we will have the Olympics to look forward to and that will bring some new dynamics and vibrancy to the Japanese economy.

But what I really look forward to is that we’ve had a lot of workstyle reform in Japan. The pandemic and the move to digitalization has really forced change overnight. We’re seeing the business community—Japanese and US companies—embracing some ongoing virtual capabilities and continuing to provide a lot of flexibility. It’s going to make for an exciting opportunity to see a lot of the initiatives, that foreign companies here have worked hard on, come to fruition. Things such as workstyle reforms that the Japanese government has wanted, embracing diversity, and providing flexibility and better quality of life for workers who have long commutes.

So, I’m actually quite excited about this year, even given some of the unknowns. I don’t know if we’ve really settled on what the new normal is, but I do hope we will soon get to some semblance of what that might mean. I do think that, with all of us having lived with the pandemic now for a lot longer than we had anticipated, the infrastructure and the realization that there’s no going back brings a very exciting element that represents a restart of sorts and offers new opportunities for the business community.

How can the ACCJ nurture Japan’s digital transformation?

A lot of Japanese companies that I’m involved with in board positions have been surprised by how easy it was to transition to virtual and remote work, but they had very different levels of infrastructure and ability to do so. Once you open up the possibility to people and they can survive it, there is a chance for real change. It isn’t easy for all types of businesses. For example, you still have companies in manufacturing that cannot fully shift to virtual work. But for pure service companies, it’s a very different value proposition.

Having said that, foreign companies, such as the one I currently work for, did it rather seamlessly overnight.

So, while perhaps a lot of Japanese companies were caught by surprise, there is now an understanding that there has to be a virtual capability—because we still don’t know exactly when we’re going to have an end to the pandemic. The realization that the need for digital is here to stay has begun to creep into conversations.

The chamber has pivoted to virtual in an incredible way, but one of our main tenets is to provide members with networking opportunities to make business connections, even across industries.

For a lot of Japanese companies that have been trying to transition to digital, it can be an expensive proposition, and there are mindset challenges among those who aren’t as familiar with digitalization, and prefer face-to-face interaction, that can create a lot of internal opposition. But I think many of the barriers that have appeared to be immovable have now begun to shift.

I do find, though, that while the things that virtual events and remote work have brought us are great, we all miss the direct social and human dynamic. So much of innovation stems from getting together in a group and brainstorming. To what extent we can do that dynamically when purely operating virtually is still a question mark. But with the Japanese government setting up a digital agency, and with Prime Minister [Yoshihide] Suga’s commitment to reforming the paper-based society, the road is being paved to do a lot more things online that seemed quite impossible in the past. There are governmental and other organizations here that have been very passionate about moving Japan toward digitalization and, as a result of the pandemic, they’re going to be able to push that policy forward. So, I’m quite optimistic that Japan is moving that way.

What the US business community and the ACCJ can do is support digital transformation 100 percent and keep the issue front and center. The chamber has always been a leader, and we came out in support of the US–Japan Digital Trade Agreement last year. We continue to be very engaged with the Japanese and US governments on behalf of the business community, to help them understand the needs from a digital perspective, and I think the two governments align in their prioritization.

With the presence we have, and with our tech company members being very active in the research we’re doing on digitalization advocacy, I find we’re uniquely positioned to really galvanize all our members across our five advocacy pillars:

■ US–Japan economic partnership

■ Digital society

■ Health and retirement

■ Tourism, sports, and hospitality

■ Workforce productivity

What’s fascinating to me now is there is a perspective that, in the future, we’re not going to be talking about working for a financial company or a pharma or healthcare company; we’re all going to be technology companies with a specialty in finance, healthcare, or whatever area. It’s been treated almost as a joke, but it’s true. I really do think that the speed of transformation brought on by the pandemic has been a game changer for businesses in Japan.

How can the chamber support healthcare through digital?

The activities and volunteer level of our Healthcare Committee members and healthcare companies is amazing. They are extremely active. Thanks to them we have had a voice, and will continue to have a voice.

With the largest aging population in the world, Japan is really at the forefront of the challenges and opportunities in the healthcare arena. Demographically, some of the issues facing healthcare providers are unique, and I think digitalization will play well into providing tailored solutions.

Pandemics such as Covid-19 will create the need for more implementation of technology for things such as remote care and even the use of robotics in surgery. Digital platforms can be used to provide outreach and care for Japan’s rural communities, and also to address some of the questions around the cost of healthcare and how the system can be more efficient.

There are so many exciting opportunities, such as the huge progress made in every individual’s ability to monitor their own biology using tech such as that of our recent ACCJ Healthcare x Digital Best Innovation Award and Moonshot Prize winner Bisu, who makes a smart urine analyzer that anyone can easily use at home.

Healthcare has to be a priority not just this year, as we emerge from the pandemic, but for the next the five years, 10 years, and beyond. We have a really strong active component in all areas of healthcare, and I have been very impressed with the upcoming white paper. I’m confident that the chamber will continue to be a voice for, and a driver of, change.

How can the ACCJ continue to support trade talks?

The chamber has been a very influential organization throughout its 72-year history. One reason is our dedication to advocacy and to trying to ensure the ability of foreign companies to compete effectively and grow in the Japanese market. Many chambers don’t engage in advocacy—not on the level that we do—and having that power of voice that spans industries is hugely beneficial.

What I’ve seen as I’ve become more involved in the ACCJ, and especially at the vice president level, is just how close our ties are with the US Embassy and how, together, we can serve as a collective voice. We get a lot of active outreach from the embassy and other government organizations, asking what our members are concerned about. I don’t see that changing at all, even in a virtual world. The recent bilateral trade talks continued virtually and were mostly unaffected by the pandemic.

I have found the engagement between the US government and the chamber to be quite open, and the same goes for the Japanese government. I feel that both really appreciate that they can come to one place and get a much broader perspective that helps them understand the priorities from an industry point of view. I personally believe that this is only going to become more critical, especially with new administrations in both countries.

Every time there’s an administration change, we want to reengage—whether it’s bilaterally or multilaterally—to find how we can work in the most effective way for our members to engage. We want to make sure their voices are heard and that we can really be at the start of the dialogue instead of coming in at the end, where it is harder to be an influencer.

Do you see progress on corporate governance in Japan?

This is a topic I’m quite passionate about. When I came to Japan for the second time, it was on a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Tokyo. My topic was a labor law project on the Equal Employment Opportunity Act and its impact on college-educated women. At the time, there were fewer opportunities for college-educated women, as they had less time in the workforce before marriage than those who did not go to college. Japan had signed the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979 and had enacted the Equal Opportunity Act in 1985 to meet the conditions under the Convention. There was a lot of hope that things were changing, that there would be more diversity.

What I find really encouraging since my return six years ago is that you’re really starting to see things change. Even though Japan might be ranked much lower on the global indices than people would expect, it has about tripled the number of women on boards since the time I was studying and working on that project. So, it’s incremental, in a way. But if you had asked me back then if I would someday serve on the board of a Japanese listed company as a foreign woman, I really would not have foreseen that. So, I am very excited about it.

I think the catalyst for change—especially around diversity— has been the demographic and economic challenges that Japan is facing, and what a lot of government agencies have worried about is stagnation. There is concern that Japan hasn’t continued innovating and is behind in digitalization. I think this has been attributed, in part, to a lack of diversity in management.

The reason that I am a choice for Japanese companies is that they’re willing and are really trying to change the makeup of their boards to get different perspectives. They see diversity as a real plus for innovation. So I feel quite optimistic. I think it’s an exciting time for Japanese companies to do more on that front.

Another role of the ACCJ is to model best business practices, and I feel very privileged to have been elected president and to be the third woman to lead the chamber. We now have more than 30 percent of our leadership positions filled by women, and our board this year—with 10 women and 13 men—is the most diverse it has ever been. It is also diverse in terms of the organizations represented, from Fortune 500 companies to small and medium-sized enterprises.

I continue to believe the saying that you have to “be the change you wish to see in the world.” So, I’m really hoping that with this diverse board—and with me having been endorsed by the membership—we’re showing that the ACCJ believes in the importance of diversity and that we live that message. I’m quite optimistic that we can continue to encourage that.

Are Japanese companies embracing diversity?

People often ask me how it is to serve on Japanese boards. Every company is different, but I don’t think I’m the first choice “off the shelf,” so to speak. I’m double diversity, right? I’m a foreigner and a female, and I’ve worked globally, so I have my own views on things. But I’m very encouraged by the fact that, when I am chosen for the board, people are expecting, and are open to, a different perspective.

We all know that in Japanese society there’s less diversity of nationalities, but I do believe that Japanese companies are really starting to realize that diversity can cut across other areas. It can be younger people or people from different walks of life. It doesn’t have to be only foreigners.

The fact that Japanese companies are actively searching now for more diversity—especially focusing on the representation of women in management positions—is a very encouraging and healthy sign. As the domestic market shrinks and other demographic pressures come into play, Japanese companies— especially the multinationals—are quite savvy and are working to ensure their global competitiveness. Maybe Covid-19 has played a role, but I do think, if we look ahead to the next few years, a confluence of factors will really encourage Japanese companies to embrace diversity.

It’s not easy to change. Japan is a consensus culture. People love the concept of diversity but, in reality, managing diversity can be challenging and can lead to a lot of discomfort. I have found myself in many global situations, when I was in India and other places, having had meetings with diverse voices that forced me to really step back and challenge my assumptions. While I think diversity may not be easy, it is incredibly important and beneficial. I hope that, within the chamber, people will learn that that’s my style of leadership. I like to engage in open, honest dialogue and to create a place where people feel they can share different views, because I believe that’s how you get to the best outcome.

What do you see as the chamber’s key initiatives this year?

Transformation, resilience, and adaptability are key words for this year. I don’t see a need to dramatically change how we’re doing things, but we need to continue to be flexible. With 2021 being a year of transition from the pandemic to a new normal, getting back to basics with hybrid networking will be a focus. We need to make sure that, amid this new dynamic, we’re still providing the value that our members look for.

I really do hope we have the Olympics, because it could be a very good chance for a lot of our businesses to have more opportunity to bring tourism back to Japan and to promote many areas that our members are interested in.

We must also continue to push ahead on the key areas of advocacy that will help Japan transform between now and 2030. These especially cut across digitalization, healthcare, demographics, and sustainability.

On that last point, I think one of the game changers of 2020 is that the pandemic has galvanized concerns over climate change, so that the issue can now be a greater part of the dialogue about any company’s value proposition and planning. Every industry is now being affected by changing sustainability targets.

US companies, in particular, are used to a variety of stake- holders and shareholder activism, and many of our members have very direct and specific knowledge of how to do that outreach and to be responsive. The pressure to address climate change is only going to increase, and this is an area in which the ACCJ has a unique voice and can advocate.

What else would you like to say to members?

I would just like to thank everybody for their continued enthusiasm. We have such an amazing group of members who are willing to volunteer. They’re really unselfish with their time and they provide a lot of community support. I thank everyone for that engagement and their continued giving of their time and support. I feel very humbled by the confidence members have in me to lead the chamber this year, and I hope everyone will reach out to me with their views on priorities and let me know if the chamber is providing the advocacy they want to see. We’re continuing to adapt to our members’ needs and I want to ensure that the value proposition remains strong.