Trainee From U.S. May Stay With Japanese If Challenge Is Right
Thomas T. Edman is an up-and-coming salesman for a major Japanese trading firm, on the slow track to success.
The 25-year-old native of Portland, Ore., joined Marubeni Corp.’s New York office out of college four years ago, thinking he would get a few years’ valuable experience before moving on to business school or a more lucrative job with a U.S. company.
But Edman, who studied the Japanese language at Yale, is now seriously considering a future with Marubeni. A year ago he transferred to corporate headquarters in Tokyo, where he works marathon hours trading chemical products, drinks almost nightly with his Japanese colleagues and lives in a tiny room in a dormitory for single Marubeni men.
“Marubeni has treated me so well that there’s been no reason in my eyes to leave,” Edman says. “They’ve shown me they’re committed to my future, and the experience and education I’m getting in Tokyo more than makes up for what I’d be getting in business school.”
Marubeni’s commitment, however, is far from a guarantee that Edman will go places quickly. He has been told that he will have some kind of junior management position when he returns to New York next year, but beyond that his opportunities are unclear.
A locally hired American has set a precedent by reaching the post of vice president of Marubeni’s U.S. subsidiary after 15 years service, but his job was largely ceremonial, Edman says.
“I’m willing to be patient,” he says. “I’m more interested in the responsibility they give me, not the title or the salary. If the job’s exciting, then it’s rewarding.”
Edman is one of about 30 foreigners, most of them South Koreans and Chinese, who are employed in trainee positions by Marubeni in Tokyo. None has permanent employment status at the company’s headquarters, but they get paid in yen, which makes Edman’s salary--about $36,000 at current exchange rates--substantial compared to the wages he earned at the subsidiary in New York. Still, he has no title, and he works in a fishbowl-like office environment.
“It hasn’t been all bliss--there have been a lot of adjustments,” Edman said. “Things are much more structured here. We work more closely with upper managers than in New York, and we’re expected to report to our section chiefs every time we do something. There’s far more communication, and to an American that means you’re inhibited.”
Edman’s encounter with Japan began in the summer after high school, when his parents packed him off to Osaka for a summer home-stay with a Japanese family. At first he did not care much for the country, but his interest grew in college. He elected to spend his junior year studying at Doshisha University in Kyoto and ended up majoring in East Asian Studies, with an emphasis on Japanese economics.
Drinking sessions with his Japanese co-workers have helped Edman develop a natural fluency in the spoken language, and he thinks that this will open doors that have been closed to many of his American predecessors with less advanced--or no--linguistic skill. The former American vice president in New York, for instance, could not participate in some important managerial meetings because he could not understand Japanese.
But more than language alone, Edman says it is gaining a thorough understanding of the decision-making process and the chain of command at the head office that will make the difference as he tries to make his mark at Marubeni.
“It’s basically communication, but it’s also a lot of politics,” Edman says. “It’s making sure you keep the key people informed of every step you take in an important matter, but it’s difficult for a foreigner to understand who those people are. It’s difficult for a Japanese, too.”
Edman says he sees a 50% chance that he will stay with Marubeni for the rest of his career, but how far he can go will depend on the extent to which Marubeni evolves into a multinational corporation. The executive suite at the parent corporation looks like a long shot.
“I think it’s very possible that in the future an American could become president of the U.S. subsidiary or a director of Marubeni Corp., but that person would have to be very special,” Edman says. “And it would have to be a corporate decision. Marubeni would have to decide it’s time for a change.”
