INSIGHTS / FOR CLIENTS & TALENT LEADERS
Make the right leadership hire.
Practical guidance for hiring country managers and building teams in Japan. Define the mandate, understand the market and run a process that earns trust.
Discuss your hiring plans →MURRAY CLARKE / FOUNDING PARTNER
Experience, applied with AI.
I’m Murray Clarke, founding partner of Aspiring Partners. I’ve spent more than 20 years in executive search in Japan, helping build four search firms. That includes years helping VMware hire its leadership team, two years internally during hypergrowth, and the executive-search joint venture I built with ManpowerGroup before selling my interest to the group.
I’ve worked as an agency recruiter, an internal recruiter and a search-firm owner. These articles draw on those perspectives to help clients define the right mandate and make sound hiring decisions.
This time, we’ve built our own platform and use AI extensively in the work. It helps me apply that experience more broadly in support of candidates, clients and the recruiters working with us. The technology supports the research and preparation; I remain accountable for the judgment and relationships.
More about Murray and Aspiring Partners →What Two Japan Business Leaders Taught Me About Trust
Meetings with Naoki Iwamitsu and Morimoto Kazunari taught Murray Clarke why honesty, continuity and personal trust matter when building a technology business in Japan.
Is your leader enterprise or channel?
The question comes up in almost every brief I take. The honest answer is that it depends on the stage the business is at, and the middle stage is the hard one.
Choosing the title for your Japan leader
A passive candidate gives your posting a few seconds and takes the title at face value. Post the Japan country job as Vice President and it reads as a step down.
Japan Country Manager Hiring Profile: Builder, Translator, or Caretaker?
The first Japan country manager usually is the market-entry strategy. Three profiles, builder, translator and caretaker, and the conditions each one fits.