●Where are you from?
I was born in Osaka and spent my school years in Kansai. I went to university in Kobe, but I also went to the Leeds area in England for a short study-abroad program. I was interested in social systems, so I majored in sociology and studied pensions, retirement security, and retirement systems in different countries.

●Wow! Were there any things that you were passionate about when you were a student?
I’ve been an active person most of my life: classical ballet from the age of three until I graduated from elementary school, tennis in middle school and high school, and hip-hop dance in college. I have been dancing for quite a long time and I learned how to communicate my thoughts to others by simply using my body and movements without using anything else. In terms of how to communicate to the audience through gestures, I think it has a great influence on my current work.

●What was your first career after graduating from university?
I was a wedding planner. I worked in Kyoto for three years, then moved to Kobe, New York, and Tokyo, for a total of six years within the company. A wedding planner is responsible for everything from new sales to planning and management, beginning with hearing out the customer’s requests, giving a presentation on what kind of wedding we can create, and then, once we receive the request, we spend about three to four months building up to the wedding day. The system varies from company to company, but at the company I worked for, one planner was in charge of each couple from start to finish.

●What did you do next?
I was involved in the launch of Hyatt Group’s Andaz Tokyo, which opened in 2014, as the wedding director. Andaz means “personal style” in Hindu, and it doesn’t provide the kind of hands-on service that the so-called creative class doesn’t like. In the past, the value of a luxury hotel was to provide excessive services, but the next generation of active people is a little different. There are a lot of people who wear denim and sneakers but are doing something socially meaningful and active. Andaz was born to match these people, and it is a brand that embodies a new kind of luxury, where customers can spend time in a natural way and in a cool space.

●What did you learn from starting up a brand in a large group?
The first company was very venture-oriented, so I was often surprised. Hyatt has a very high awareness of the brand, and they are very thorough in every detail. I learned a lot about how to carefully nurture the brand, or rather, how to ensure that each staff member is aware of the brand from the same perspective and provides it in the same way. In the end, I spent a year and a half preparing for the opening of Andaz, and a year and a half after the opening, for a total of three years at Hyatt.

●What kind of work did you do after that?
Well, after that, I worked at Japan House, the cultural center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the Tokyo office working for Los Angeles. My job was to act as an intermediary between Japanese content holders and people who wanted to bring something to Los Angeles. Here, too, we had to start from scratch, and I spent two years preparing for the opening and one year after the opening, for a total of about three years.

●Did you like the job of being the point of contact between customers and business?
I guess so. Looking back so far, I am glad that my first career was as a wedding planner. I think I like working alongside and handling customers to give shape to what they want to come true, even though it’s not visible. After that, it was the same kind of work. There’s a street called Shintora-dori that opened at the same time as Andaz Tokyo. At that time I was the community manager and general manager of The Core Kitchen Space, located in the middle of the street. It is an event space that also has a restaurant, and the people at Mori Building, who had previously helped me with the launch of Andaz Tokyo, asked me if I would be interested in joining the preparations for the opening of a place that would enliven the city. I worked there for about a year.

●I know you have a long career of opening up new businesses, but isn’t starting up a business a pretty tough job?
When I think back, that was certainly the case. I don’t know, I guess I like the idea of making something up from scratch, something that hasn’t yet taken shape and then being torn apart. The job of a wedding planner is also a start-up. Each couple is completely different, so each time I would start the process and finish it on the wedding day.

●So you’ve always been good at starting things up?
Yeah, I think so. In a way, that’s probably what my days were like in my university dance club. For the showcase, we had to make decisions on everything from choreography and composition through to song selection and costumes. We had to work hard to improve the quality of the performance. Finally, we finished it the day we went on stage.

●What is the most important skill in start-up?
Thinking it’s fun to solve problems. You have to think ahead about things as if they will happen, rather than thinking that they won’t. That makes the heart quite strong. I don’t dance anymore, but when I get away from work, I like to do pilates to ease my mind and also to be able to face myself. It helps me to think about my physical and mental well-being head-on. I also like public baths and saunas. And my cat also helps me to calm down!

●Did you start working at K5 after that?
Yes, I was invited to K5 by Mr Yuta Oka (*1), whom I met through a friend. The decision-making process at The Core Kitchen Space was complicated, and I didn’t have the authority to handle the task of changing and revitalizing the city. It had been five or six years since I had fought in a large organization or structure, so when Mr Oka talked to me, I thought it was a place where I could work with determination and make my own decisions.

※1 Yuta Oka
One of the founders of K5. He is a hotel producer who specializes in hotel planning, development, and management, and has been involved in the establishment of various hotels.

●Did you participate in K5 from its inception?
I joined the company four months before it opened. The basic design and concept were in place, but the software was still in its infancy. I joined the company as the first person in charge of operations and started thinking about hiring people, operations, and so on. To tell you the truth, when I was asked if I wanted to be the general manager of K5 Hotel, I thought about saying no many times at first (laughs). I’ve never been the general manager of a hotel before. I had no confidence and felt nothing but fear, so I leaned towards declining. I kept walking back and forth in front of the office. But then, I realized I couldn’t say no, and so having made up my mind, I went home. The opening day was just around the corner, and I was determined to do it, even though it might be a tough job. Well, I thought, it won’t kill me!

●What did you feel when you opened your business?
I realized that there is a moment when a brand is truly born. I’ve witnessed a lot of business openings, but this was the first time I saw a brand being created by someone I knew, by three founders (*2) close to me, so I was very impressed. The three founders are all facing different directions, and they’re standing there supporting each other like a tent, but I’m left in charge of how to make K5 roll. I thought that K5 should continue to be a place of value for the three of us and that we should nurture it.

※2 The three founders of K5 are Yuta Oka, Akihiro Matsui, and Takahiro Honma.

●I’m sure Covid-19 had an impact on you but is there anything you are feeling now?
This past year has been really tough. But I think the reason I’m here is because of the fact that it’s been so hard. If I become stable, I’ll get the urge to start something else (laughs). What are you going to do? What can I do? It’s fun to think about. It’s fun to think about what I do, what I can do, and what I should do. And the unevenness of stopping and dashing has given me time to think, which is probably a good thing.

●It’s hard to read the future when you don’t know what’s going to happen.
That’s true. When we opened the hotel, I was afraid that the reputation of the newly opened hotel would be shaken by my small decisions, but now that we are in this situation, I feel that I have no choice but to do what I want to do with the utmost care and sincerity. I don’t think things will ever go back to the way they were in the past, so I think it’s my job to always prepare a team that can do what they enjoy doing with that mentality, keep doing it, and make it happen.

●Do you have a career goal that you would like to pursue next? Do you want to start something new?
I’ve been taking leadership in launching operations and giving them shape for the past 13 years, so I’m confident that I can accomplish any task to some extent. However, there were parts of my work that I felt frustrated by because I couldn’t do them, and I really wanted to do more. I want to refine that category a little more, or maybe it’s something like …… branding, or maybe it’s another part beyond that. When you open a business, there are important things that overlap with operations, but as you run around in the field, there are things you can’t do.

●What kind of town would you like to see Kabutocho become? What kind of role do you think K5 Hotel can play in this process?
For Kabutocho, I would like K5 to be a big receptacle for both people from the neighborhood and people from far away. I want K5 to be a place that is always standing tall, introducing other stores to people who don’t know the area, and planning how to spend their time in the area according to their needs. For this purpose, I would like to see more places where people can visit more easily. I’d like to increase the number of lifestyle stores such as flowers and general merchandise as well as restaurants.