Know MC's People

When I was sent to Indonesia as a Global Trainee, the officer in charge said this to me. The company I was posted at is a distributor of vehicles manufactured by Mitsubishi Motors, and my mission there was to learn about frontline operations and digital transformations (DX). I had no experience in the digital space, so I was a bit apprehensive, but I was also determined to do what was expected of me. The language barrier was tough at first, and I couldn't follow anything that was said during the meetings that were held only in Indonesian, but I didn't give up. I kept studying very hard and tried to be proactive about communicating with my Indonesian colleagues. I managed to build up a good rapport with them and gradually earned their trust.
After that, I was able to visit local dealerships and customers with my teammates, and I started to understand more about customer behavior. I then used that information to collaborate with others on launching a project to improve the company's digital marketing. Some of the people I worked with included the company's own data scientists, as well as representatives of outside advertising agents, tech companies, and so on. When it was time for me to go back to Japan, my Indonesian colleagues held a farewell party for me and told me that they hoped I'd come back one day. I was really moved when they said that. My experience during that training assignment reminded me how important it is to both think and act for ourselves and engage those around us, and how doing those things can give us a true sense of accomplishment.

Right now, I'm on secondment at ALTNA Co., Ltd. (ALTNA), which is a 50-50 joint venture that MC established with Honda Motor Co. in July 2024. ALTNA is endeavoring to help grow the use of renewable energy, so that we can realize net zero and a circular economy. It plans to do this in two ways, first by optimizing the costs of using EVs and thereby growing their market share, and second by promoting the secondary use of EV batteries as power-system storage batteries. My role is to identify new sales methods aimed at encouraging more widespread societal EV applications. Every day, my teammates and I are working hard to come up with original ideas and action plans. We know that our efforts are being relied on to conceive globally unprecedented solutions that will become standard practices in the future of mobility. ALTNA is a brand new company and its business is only just getting off the ground, but my job there has already been tremendously rewarding!

When I was growing up, I always wanted to work overseas one day, which is why I got a job at MC. So far, I've been given a wide variety of assignments in businesses that are being developed in China, Russia, India and Indonesia. it's being said that the auto industry is in the midst of a once-in-a-century revolution, and I've seen evidence of that myself in a number of different countries. Ride sharing, EVs, and other new concepts have swiftly taken root and are now a normal part of people's everyday lives.
Being able to directly experience those changes overseas has motivated me to take on new challenges at ALTNA, namely to help EVs take root here in Japan as well and lead us towards a net-zero society. As my next challenge, I'd like to leverage my experience along with MC's multi-industry business foundations, networks and partnerships to create new, "made-in-Japan" mobility solutions. By doing so, and by globally developing those solutions in the future, I'm confident that we can not only make people's lives more convenient and comfortable, but also help to realize a more sustainable world.