Over the past decade, Japan’s leading companies have undergone a reinvention, away from brand names and commoditized products to a stealth, deep-tech leadership in critical inputs into global supply chains. This reinvention requires new corporate processes and a new corporate culture that enable risk-taking and breakthrough innovation. This event will introduce the core message of Ulrike Schaede’s award-winning book “The Business Reinvention of Japan”, followed by a discussion with the key executives of JSR and AGC who have led this corporate renewal and reinvention in their effort to turn what used to be traditional, risk-averse, slow and steady companies into agile, tech-driven, global competitors. AGC Inc., formerly Asahi Glass Co., Ltd., is a supplier of flat, automotive, display glass, chemicals, ceramics and other high-tech components and the JSR Corporation, formerly Japan Synthetic Rubber Co., Ltd., engages in the manufacture and sale of synthetic rubber and fine chemical materials.

Date and Time:
Tuesday, September 21st, 2021 at 4:30 P.M. (PDT)
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2021 at 8:30 A.M. (Japan Time)

Price:

FREE!  (Zoom link will be sent upon registration)

Agenda

9/21 (PDT), 9/22 (Japan Time)

4:30pm (8:30am): Opening Remarks, Tracy Gopal | Founder & CEO, Third Arrow Strategies
4:35pm (8:35am): Professor Ulrike Scheade | Professor of Japanese Business at the University of California, San Diego, School of Global Policy and Strategy, and Director of JFIT
4:45pm (8:45am): Eric R. Johnson | Representative Director and CEO, JSR Corporation President of JSR North America Holdings, Inc.
4:50pm (8:50am): Takuya Shimamura | Chairman, Member of the Board, AGC Inc.
4:55pm (8:55am): Fireside Chat
5:15pm (9:15am): Q&A from audience
5:30pm (9:30am): Closing, Takahide Akiyama | President, Japan Society of Northern California

 OUR AMAZING SPEAKERS

Takuya Shimamura | Chairman, Member of the Board, AGC Inc.

Takuya Shimamura is the Chairman, Member of the Board, (hereafter AGC), a world-leading manufacturer of glass, chemicals, and high-tech materials. Beginning his career in 1980 as a production planning manager at the Chemicals Company, one of AGC’s in-house divisions, Takuya Shimamura’s bold decisions and initiatives in the structural reform resulted in successful downsizing of AGC’s chlor-alkali business in Japan. In 2003, he was appointed as the President Director of PT Asahimas Chemicals, one of AGC’s subsidiaries and the largest Chlor-alkali producer in Southeast Asia. Under his strong leadership, PT Asahimas Chemicals marked record high profits. Having served as the president of the Chemicals Company for three years, in 2013, Takuya Shimamura was appointed as a Senior Executive Officer and the President of the Electronics Company, one of AGC’s in-house divisions. In 2015, He assumed the CEO position. He is the first CEO in AGC’s history to have managed two different inhouse-companies.

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Eric R. Johnson | Representative Director and CEO, JSR Corporation President of JSR North America Holdings, Inc.

Eric R. Johnson became Representative Director and CEO of JSR Corporation in 2019, where he now sets the company’s global vision and strategy, with a special focus on growth, globalization and sustainability. Prior to becoming CEO, Eric was president of both JSR Micro, Inc. and JSR Life Sciences. In the life sciences business, he set and oversaw global strategy including spearheading the vision and establishment of JSR Life Sciences in 2014. He also shaped the division’s manufacturing and merger and acquisition strategy, growing JSR Life Sciences to a global group of companies with nearly 2000 employees.  From 2005 to 2019, Eric served as president of JSR Micro, Inc. where he was responsible for the day-to-day US operations and development and integration of global strategies. In 2011 he became the first non-Japanese corporate officer of JSR Corporation.

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Ulrike Schaede | Professor of Japanese Business at the University of California, San Diego, School of Global Policy and Strategy, and Director of JFIT (Japan Forum for Innovation and Technology)

Ulrike Schaede is Professor of Japanese Business at the University of California, San Diego, School of Global Policy and Strategy, and Director of JFIT (Japan Forum for Innovation and Technology). She is the author of The Business Reinvention of Japan: How to Make Sense of the New Japan (Stanford University Press, 2020), which won the 2021 Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize as well as a 2021 Axiom Business Book award. Schaede has spent over nine years of research in Tokyo and is an advisor to several companies and organizations in Japan.

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