Chief Change Officer - Salesperson-Turned-Travel Tech CEO, Ryota Tanozaki: How I Build an E-commerce Company in Japan

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm your host, Vince Chen. Last week, we were in New Haven, Connecticut, at Yale University. This week, we fly all the way from U.S. to Tokyo, Japan. I've always felt a special connection to Japan. My first trip overseas with my family took us to Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo when I was just nine years old. Later, during my first year at Yale MBA, I joined the first-ever study trip to Japan, where 15 of us explored Japan's business culture, visiting companies like Shiseido, Toyota, NTT DoCoMo, and the Japanese government,

Starting point is 00:01:08 including the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. I even wrote a paper about the Japanese economy and banking industry after the trip. Between 2017 and 2019, I've been involved in ACTEC Japan, an international conference on the future of education technology, where I've been featured as a speaker for three years. As a business professional, I'm always amazed by Japan's culture of craftsmanship and its blend of tradition with modernization. And as a traveler, I can't get enough of the Japanese hospitality. In this episode, I'm talking with Ryota Tanosaki, the president and CEO of Tapest, who's innovating the Japanese hospitality industry.

Starting point is 00:02:05 Ryota and I were MBA classmates at Chicago Booth. Since graduation, he's faced some fascinating yet unexpected career transitions. For those unfamiliar, Tapest originally part of a joy venture with SoftBank in 2019 with the headquarters in India, it was rebranded and localized as Tapest around 2022, with Rialta stepping up as the CEO. Tebby means truffle in Japanese, as you can imagine, as successful as his appointment sounded, this appointment came during a very challenging time. Post-formal of the Tokyo Olympics game and the COVID situation, both of which rocked the travel industry. Over the next 20 minutes, Ryota will share not only his own career transformation, also how tapas has evolved during an incredibly challenging period for travel. I'll attach

Starting point is 00:03:16 the press release about the company's background in the show notes for those interested. Without further ado, let's welcome Ryota Tanasaki. I want to share my career, and after that, maybe you'll ask some of the details for transition timing. Yeah, first, after college, I joined Tantori, a beer and whiskey manufacturer, sales and marketing especially. After a five-year journey at Santoli, I decided to move toward management consulting firm because I wanted to cultivate not just sales and marketing capability, but also strategy building capability and also executing it. After that, I joined several management consulting firms and spent around 12 years. After that, I decided to pursue executive I got an opportunity to manage e-commerce

Starting point is 00:04:28 business under a BTO company called Transcosmos. After working for Transcosmos for 10 months, at that moment, Facebook reached out to me, why don't you become a head of the client solution manager at Facebook Japan? So that position is like playing a role of the CEO at Facebook Japan. So collaborating with country manager to develop strategy and then execute strategy. So that kind of role. And then I spent four years at Japan. I transitioned from Facebook to Oyo Hotels. And then I changed the name from Oyo Japan to Tabist. So I have been here for four years at Tabist.

Starting point is 00:05:23 So that's my career. When I was starting out, a lot loved my friends heading off to business school with big dreams of becoming CEO one day. The plan always seemed pretty straightforward. Get an MBA first, then join one of the biggest consulting firms, McKinsey, BZG, to tackle a bunch of business challenges across different industries. Then, maybe at some point, they launch their own business or start climbing the corporate ladder somewhere big, become the CEO, CFO, CEO somewhere. For them, MBA first, consulting next. But you kind of flipped the script a bit. You spent five years in one of the biggest corporations in Japan in a functional role

Starting point is 00:06:16 in sales and marketing. Then went into management consulting and stayed there for over a decade. Later, pursued MBA to get, I would say, some kind of extra edge. Now, before we jump into your experiences at Tablist, I'm really curious about your consulting days. Could you tell us about one of those projects? Maybe one that stands out as particularly memorable or that gave you some deep insights? One of the memorable projects that I experienced was at the Frontier Management Inc., a town around consulting park. That project, I played a role of the COO, department store located in the very rural area in Japan. Because of declining population in the rural city, they were struggling to increase revenue.

Starting point is 00:07:26 Because they wanted to turn around their business, they invested a lot of money and lent a lot of money from banks to build new shopping malls next to their existing department store. Frontier Management was hired by the biggest bank, the biggest lender to the company, to turn around the company. That project was quite challenging. However, it was quite fulfilling because it was the first moment where I not just built a strategy, but also execute a strategy with employees of that company. So at that moment, I learned. So building strategy is totally different. Executing strategy. So in order for us

Starting point is 00:08:29 to execute strategy as a manager, as a leader, you have to always consider people because unless people are engaged with strategy and motivated to execute a strategy companies cannot look for. I spent two years with you at Chicago Booth as a classmate, yet I've never asked you the next question. I'm going to ask you now, and you give me your honest answer. What actually triggered you to get an MBA at Chicago Booth at that point in time? Frankly speaking, exactly at the moment when I was engaged with that project

Starting point is 00:09:15 at the frontier management and at the department store, I felt concerned that all my career could last in a rural city and my entire career ends. So that was my concern at the moment. I started thinking, why don't I leverage what I experienced so far globally? Gradually thinking, I want to challenge more. I want to challenge not just in domestic cities in Japan, but also globally. And then I consulted with my boss, the president of frontier management,

Starting point is 00:10:01 about the opportunity to work globally. At some moment, my boss was considering to develop the office in Singapore. They provided me with the opportunity to start developing the global office in Singapore. Of course, I grabbed that kind of opportunity. At the same time, I wanted to pursue MBA, home country, because I wanted to up the corporate ladder, and I wanted to acquire business networks outside Japan. Rialto, as you were sharing your story, I did a quick Google search. Actually, three searches in about 10 seconds. I typed in change career at 30. I got about 2 billion results. Then I searched change career at 40.

Starting point is 00:11:04 I got over 1 billion results. Finally, I entered Change Career F50. I found over 1.5 billion results. So altogether, roughly 4.5 billion results in 10 seconds about change career. I haven't done any other keyword searches. I'm sure if I go deeper, I'll find more interesting insights. So what does this search mean? It shows that at certain stages of our lives, at certain age, we are either compelled or forced to change careers, or we have a strong desire for a change. In today's job market, I would argue that we should embrace this change and be prepared to initiate the change on our own terms.

Starting point is 00:12:14 In your case, you felt insecure. Some might call this a midlife crisis. I prefer to see it as a positive sense of crisis or a constructive insecurity. Why is it positive? Because feeling insecure drives you to take action. It pushes you to improve your security. It increases your chances. You fight for better job prospects. You move out of your country. You move out of your comfort zone. You went for an MBA degree. You network with people from different industries and countries. This expands not only your horizons, but also your opportunities,

Starting point is 00:13:21 turning your sense of insecurity into a positive force in your life. Would you agree with my assessment? Yes. At Frontier Management, I realized that I was quite excited about building teams and building business, not just building the great strategy and letting clients execute it. So that was my transition moment. It was quite natural for me to transit from consulting world to a consult world. At that moment, social digital marketing was quite important for corporations to accelerate their growth. And also, e-commerce platform was prevalent like Shopify and other. I just considered, okay, I have to embed more technical skills and digital experiences through my career. So I chose Brand Cosmos and then Facebook.

Starting point is 00:14:26 So that's my intention at the moment. You talk a lot about business theology that has been a major theme in your career life. Would you say you are equally strategic about every career move you've made so far? But at France Coastal, it was not strategic, right? Because it was only for 10 months and unfortunately I decided to move toward a patient because in reality, before joining TransCosmos, I thought my role could be to build a new e-commerce company in Japan. But the reality was that I wanted to manage a pot of companies, or e-commerce companies, located in Southeast Asia.

Starting point is 00:15:22 Because TransCosmos bought a variety of e-commerce companies located in Southeast Asia. Because Transcosmos bought a variety of e-commerce companies located in Southeast Asia, so they were struggling and then decided to divest some of them. So that was totally different from my expectation. So I just started looking for another opportunity. So that was not my intention, but maybe it was strategic, but it was unfortunate for both of me as well as Prasco. How do you handle both setbacks and successes?

Starting point is 00:16:10 People looking at your career might say, wow, you're incredibly successful. But we all know that behind every success, there are tons of challenges you've overcome. In fact, a lot, a lot of challenges, a lot, a lot of setbacks to support one instance of success. What is your philosophy for managing both the ups and the downs? Yeah, that's a great question. Experience is quite important. At France Cosmos, what I expected was totally different. I pursued a different journey just after 10 months of work at France Cosmos. But I always think if you want to build something great or if you want to make a great thing. Perseverance is quite important. So what you're suggesting is managing both the highs and the lows, the setbacks and successes really comes down to perseverance, right? I remember when you moved from Facebook or Meta to Tapest, which was called OYO, originally from India, a travel tech company. That was a fairly tough period of time. It was no joke. Tell me, how did you tap into your perseverance

Starting point is 00:17:45 to navigate the company through the early days of COVID, then the Tokyo Olympics post-war, and then now back to what we might call normal? Three months after I joined the Tavis, I placed COVID. And then I had to lead a restructuring. So in terms of organization, in terms of the contract with customers. At the same time, I had to build new mission, vision, and strategy.

Starting point is 00:18:23 At the moment, our investors, especially SBK, Geisselbank, Telecom Corporation, decided to make local executive leadership, which is me, for years at a pass. So I didn't expect I continue to work for Tavist for such a long time because COVID lasted for three years, right? It was quite tough, but I always believe. So perseverance is quite important for leaders to build a great company or make a significant impact, make a significant and positive impact on the society, I'm here right now. You used the word perseverance. And often leaders like to use another buzzword, resilience. I totally get the concept as I've had to practice resilience myself over many years. But as a company leader, how do you impart this mindset, this resilience to your team? I'm not talking

Starting point is 00:19:37 about operations or technology resilience. I'm talking about people, the human beings around you. You might be incredibly resilient yourself, but if your team doesn't share that sense of resilience, it won't be reflected in the team, in the culture as a whole. Then the word resilience would just be a buzzword. So what's your approach to fostering resilience when it comes to building and managing your team? Yeah, with this quite a challenging situation, what I did was mainly three things. First one is I always shared our mission and vision with team members in terms of compensation. So we are not that great in comparison to Facebook, Google, Amazon, you name it.

Starting point is 00:20:40 It's a global company. At the same time, we have to, so as a leader, continue to motivate them to work for a startup, so like Tavist. So in order for us to do that, we have to give them another reason about why they continue to work for Tavist or continue to work for a startup.

Starting point is 00:21:04 So one of the reasons is mission and vision. So our mission is to provide technology for small and medium-sized hotels and ryokan. To Slyke, that mission is quite fulfilling and quite engaged with our people. When our team members visit rural cities and visit some of the local hotels, they cannot integrate technology with their nation. They see that kind of situation in reality. If we can provide technology with them, they can thrive with less people. They also have a difficulty of hiring people because in Japan, it's facing the declining population, right? It's very huge issue of labor resources.

Starting point is 00:22:06 So you paint the situation in a real life. They embrace that kind of mission into their heart and blood. They are motivated to work for Tavis. So that's about the intrinsic motivation, the sense of mission, the sense of action. What else? Secondly, the important thing is to provide a strategy, clear strategy. They also are quite smart.

Starting point is 00:22:38 So we have to let them understand why we can win, why we can realize our mission. So what kind of things are quite different against competitors? So we have to find out true problems our clients face. And we have to be focused on that kind of problem. And then we have to provide a strategy, share strategy with stakeholders, of course, including employees. What you call the astrology, I would say is a pathway. You or the investors have the vision executed, but the people around you, they follow you. So in order to follow you, yes, they have a reason, that intrinsic motivation you've mentioned.

Starting point is 00:23:26 But then you tell them, well, that's how we're going to do it. You call the strategy, you call the pathway. Then you engage stakeholders. The employees, of course, one of them, investors, partners, customers. It's a multi-stakeholder development and management process. What's your third thing? And the third thing is the leader. These five examples. One of the strategies is to acquire, of course, acquire many partners, partner hotels and real accounts. I quite often visit local city to meet some of the potential clients. And then I myself grabbed several facilities through teaching to them why we are here

Starting point is 00:24:12 and how we can help them thrive in a rural city. So then they gradually think, okay, Ryota did that. Why don't we do the same thing with this strategy? They could be convinced more. So mission, vision, and strategy and execution by leader are quite important for a startup to get their employees to be motivated. Yes, that is leadership example. I would also like to see this as you getting closer to your customer.

Starting point is 00:24:49 You really want to learn about the situation, the problems. And then you show to your staff how you win accounts, how you solve problems. If they're smart enough, they observe how you do it and then they follow. They take some of your best insights, the best lessons, and then execute. It's also a kind of quality management

Starting point is 00:25:18 so that you can train up your staff to deliver. Let's extend on this topic of leadership by example. Leader, one kind of leader, which I admire, is called servant leader. You lead by serving. Another kind is you lead by coaching. So some of the best leaders I've worked for in my career life, they coach me on the side, make me become a better person, better leader. Now, I know that outside of office work, you teach marketing, social media strategy at one of the business schools in Japan. Share with me about your teaching experience as a faculty member.

Starting point is 00:26:13 Yes, I'm teaching at a global university, marketing and strategy. My customers, so my students, come from a variety of Japanese and very established corporations. My career vision is to realize potential of people. Leading by example is quite important, but you cannot do everything. You have to create a great team. So training, feeding, and nurturing them is also quite important, not just at Globist, but at Tavist. That's the reason why I teach not just at Globist at university, but also at Tavist as well. Leaders are like coaches, right? They're always helping others to learn and grow.

Starting point is 00:26:57 Speaking of which, are there any books or resources that really change the game for you? Maybe something you recommend to our listeners to help inspire them just as much as it did for you? Yeah, yeah. Two books that I want to encourage people to read, especially these people to read. So first book is from classic book, so Innovate, Innovate L written by Clay Listensen. The reason why I chose this book

Starting point is 00:27:26 is because it is quite transformative for me because even the products focused on small and medium-sized customers can win over the great products or great company with large corporations. So that is quite counterintuitive, but that's happening. So that kind of concept still is distilled in the topist strategy. I believe we are now focused on providing our technology to small and medium-sized hotels and hotels. But eventually, our products will permeate not just small and medium-sized companies, but also large corporations. So that kind of paradigm shift has already started. The other book is the recent book, but I learned a lot because it is first time for me to build a company and run

Starting point is 00:28:35 a startup at Tavist. But I learned a lot of things from this book. So, High-Groove Handbook written by Eli Gilles. He is quite a famous investor in Silicon Valley and he discussed with several entrepreneurs and executives about how to run a startup, how to operate a startup, how to build a corporation. So I learned a lot from this book. So especially one of the things that I exactly did based on this book was to write down the note about how to read real time. So I just write down everything about me and share that kind of knowledge with my employees at times so they can learn. Okay, quit to be like that. What kind of strengths he has?

Starting point is 00:29:37 What kind of weakness he has? I haven't actually read the book High Growth Handbook myself. But what you just said reminds me of something I do fairly often. I'm not big on texting or using social media because I prefer writing things down by hand. There's something about the process of writing. It involves a lot of thinking, reflecting, and analyzing. By the time I've written something out, I've already worked through a lot of the information in my head. And I also find that even if I haven't figured out the problem, this process of writing, as I'm doing it, the answer comes through more naturally.

Starting point is 00:30:32 Speaking of which, remember in our Leadership Capital class taught by Linda Ginzel, the social psychologist at Chicago Booth, she talked about how our brains can trick us into rationalizing or justifying our thoughts too quickly. She suggested that to think clearly, we should write things down, not just to type it out, actually write it down by hand in its rawest form. That way, you can come back to it later, maybe a day or even a week later, and see exactly what you were thinking at that time. It really helps you work through your ideas and find solutions. Clayton Christensen. Yes, he's been my favorite author for the longest time.

Starting point is 00:31:21 Sadly, he passed away around the start of COVID. That book you mentioned, The Innovator's Dilemma, is absolutely incredible. But there's another one of his that I love, which is How Will You Measure Your Life? I highly recommend it to all my listeners, no matter what role you're in or what job you're doing. Anyways, thank you so much for your time today, Ryota. I'm really looking forward to our next conversation. I hope it won't be over a virtual setup next time. Instead, let's aim to be sitting next to each other,

Starting point is 00:32:06 enjoying some beer and good food in Tokyo. Thanks again. Thank you, Liz. I quite enjoyed it. Thank you for having me. Japan is fantastic, so we're going to stick around there for our next episode. This time, I'll be chatting with one of my good friends, Steve Monaghan. He's originally from Australia.

Starting point is 00:32:31 He's worked in a lot of places such as Singapore and Hong Kong. I met him in Hong Kong a few years ago. Now he's in Tokyo. Steve is an expert in a whole bunch of areas, basically money related, such as banking, insurance, payment solutions and AI. Now he's a general partner in a venture fund and investor. There's so much we can learn from him. Actually, I think everyone wants to change. We love going on holidays to new places. We love

Starting point is 00:33:06 having different meals every day. But if you're going to place a minefield in the middle of that journey and place everyone at risk, no one's going to go and make that journey to do that new thing. And that learning helped me distill into the reason that you get the most no's is because people don't know. They don't understand. They haven't learned. They don't really see what that new thing is. And then as you can see on my website and as we've discussed, my full role has been to turn a no into a K-N-O-W. So a no to a no and then into now. And that's really the role of any business person and any innovation officer or any digital officer is to actually go and make that happen. Thanks again for listening. I'm your host, Vince Chen. Subscribe and be inspired. I'll see you next time.

Chief Change Officer - Salesperson-Turned-Travel Tech CEO, Ryota Tanozaki: How I Build an E-commerce Company in Japan

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