Sumitomo Corporation

Canada

SMS Equipment Inc.

What are your main responsibilities at SMS Equipment?: SMS Equipment Inc. is a leading Canadian-based company operating in the field of heavy equipment sales and maintenance, in particular, construction and mining equipment. I am mainly involved in human resources and occupational health and safety. We provide support to the operations in a number of areas; our primary focus is on safety, recruitment and employee development.

We took a family hiking trip in Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona in 2009.

Have you had any interesting experiences working with Japanese staff?: Yes. When I first listened to a Japanese employee making a presentation in PowerPoint at a meeting, I was impressed by how much information was contained on a single slide! Organizing a large quantity of broad-ranging information in one slide is an amazing skill unique to Japanese people. I would need 10 slides to present the same amount of information. In Canada, generally, presenters use PowerPoint mainly to emphasize key points, and provide details by speaking to the audience directly.

I visited Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto during my first trip to Japan in September 2010.

What personal qualities or capabilities do you think are important in working in a global company?: What is important, in my view, is the diversity of the entire staff, rather than what specific skills and abilities individual employees have developed. A real mixture of people with different skills, capabilities, attitudes and cultural backgrounds can set off interesting and constructive "synergies." On the contrary, organizations consisting of personnel with similar qualities will lack flexibility and likely have difficulty in effectively dealing with the changes required to ensure the organization is competative and successful on a global basis. I believe that a diverse workforce is essential to global business development.