Tell us about yourself!
I lead X Design Center in Japan, a local marketing group that is only in Japan, and is a team that was built up from scratch by me. We are a team of about 15 strong doing everything from solutions, research, media reports, public relations, to product marketing management. I started my career in Dentsu, an advertising firm here in Japan, where I worked in advertising strategy and marketing.
How would you describe yourself, if you were a brand?
If I was a brand myself, I want to think of myself in terms of product design, and perhaps, be a little slimmer physically!
What is X Design Center (XDC)?
My leadership principle and hiring goal is to find people who have something that I don't. When I have work that I want to pass on to the team, I want to have someone on the team that is more skilled and better equipped than I am to take on that job.
We have 4 main divisions - the customized solutions group that talks to advertisers and agencies, the engagement product team that manages product sales strategy, the study and comms group who recently did a user white paper, as well as frequent seminars and talks including the upcoming Spikes Asia in Singapore end of September; and last but not least, our producer and operations team who handle everything operational the team requires, such as contracts, finance, and project management.
How would you define "creative"?
Creative, in art and advertising both start out to create, however they are fundamentally different. Art highlights existing problems and is about self-expression. However, ad creatives are created for solving problems. For design and creatives, it doesn't end at thinking about the problem, but about creating a message that can get through to people. This is what makes the work "creative" - solving the problem for the product through ideation and sourcing for a solution.
How would you go about finding that solution?
Firstly, we have to define what is the problem by looking at the gap between the goal and current situation. The issue would be decided by its urgency and the resources available, but we have to have a thorough understanding of the situation, and to have an image of the goal in mind.
"Creativity" and art is often seen as creating 1 from 0, but in actuality, it is about finding the history of best practices and solutions, and learning from them. Understanding the best of the best from historic cases would give you the chance to create even better best practices. This is what I define creativity to be- always learning, always sourcing, always building up, and pushing boundaries.
What brought you here to ByteDance?
At Dentsu, I was on the front line for many years, and I could imagine myself doing the same thing for another 10 years, but I was working solo, and I wanted to work with a team, and leverage that teamwork, to work towards 100 together, and to have a team that would all work towards a common goal to create synergy and value as one.
I personally wanted to work on something that would be economically beneficial as well and brought in revenue, and that made me think of alternative routes to expand into. I wanted a job where I would have the creative space to think of campaigns that could set a creative standard that other firms could learn from. ByteDance told me I would have the freedom to create what I wanted, so I took up the opportunity and started my journey as the Head of X Design Center at ByteDance Japan.
Having won various accolades such as the 100 Leading Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine in 2016, 40 under 40 in 2018 by Campaign Magazine, The Innovator 25 2018 Asia-Pacific by the Holmes Report, you have an impressive number of awards under your belt. What are you most proud of?
I'm really proud of myself for creating this team and department from scratch. It was a really tiring process, but I would like to think that I was the only one that could have achieved this. This is because my job requires expertise in research including future forecasting and vision, advertising strategy, product revenue, public relations, and overall management. I don't think another creative could have taken my job.
I feel that my background came together at XDC, where my wide areas of expertise in creative and strategy at Dentsu, and in management and finance through my Masters are all in use. I wanted to be a creative but I never thought I wanted to be a generalist, yet this job has given me the opportunity to be a focused generalist and utilize all my years of experience in one role.
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