Our Members
Tomoko Matsukawa
Shoko Wada
Mie Mizutani
Following the tradition at Harvard Business School, we asked the members to submit 200- word "portrait project essay" answering the following question from the poem by Mary Oliver :
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ”
Ayami Kawasaki
Ka Ya Lee
Miho Sakuma
TOMOKO MATSUKAWA
New York City
Looking back, it seems like most of my pivotal life choices were made as a result of following my heart instead of my logical mind. Those made my life to date pretty "wild and precious".
Such as... - 1) Going to the US for undergrad, 2) shift my major to workspace design in my Junior year, 3) going to work for an investment bank upon graduation, 4) leaving finance after 5 yrs to explore the world of talent development, 5) choosing to pursue M.Ed, 6) taking a summer associate role at a nonprofit with no healthcare benefit nor guarantee for a full-time position or visa support post-grad school, 7) breaking up with a 7-year bf after knowing him for over 12 years with no prospect of if I will ever meet someone as special again in the middle of a foreign city in my early 30s.
So, ... my current plan is to continue that. I plan to enjoy and learn from various opportunities I choose to put myself through, to make sure I listen to what my heart tells me to do and to invest in meaningful relationships building & community and leverage all of them so that together we can bring out the best versions of ourselves. Through that, I believe, more people would be able to thrive and live their respective "wild and precious" life and that would be nice.
I grew up in China, Switzerland and Indonesia. The experience was vibrant and exciting, it opened my mind up and my curiosity bloomed.
However, the exhilarating story turned upside-down when I came back to my home country. It used to be acceptable to make every small mistakes due to ignorance of the local language or the culture, as a Japanese who was expected to repatriate sometime in the future. It was no longer the case in Japan. I became a source of confusion and unusuality for my schoolmates.
After years and years of processing my sense of insecurity, I am now comfortable of being my unique self.
Here is the new story I reframed to lead a positive life.
I became myself thanks to my unique experiences, so I no longer rely on my nationality to define my identity.
I embrace my rootlessness and set the globe as home, so I am no longer afraid of being excluded.
I take my difference to make a difference. I am a change agent who is open minded, curious and courageous. I am an empathetic includer who cherishes diversity and helps people feel safe of being their unique self.
SHOKO WADA
Tokyo
SHOKO WADA
Tokyo
Many moments in my life, I made a vow that I would never take my luck and privilege for granted.
I grew up in Japan, U.S., and Brazil; my college/ job took me to Portugal, Philippines, India and Italy. I have a loving family, a family that always supports me no matter what.
The list is long.
I knew that I wanted to pay back. I knew it was my responsibility to pay back. But for a long time, I didn’t know how. Would it be to work at a consulting firm, where you get to work with senior level executives and create a better future for Japanese firms? Would it be to work for a humanitarian organization, where you make the world a better place? But how would I know I am making the right impact? Who do I pay back/ forward?
But recently, I’m finally starting to see a strength that I can leverage: being able to share something in common with a lot of people, which helps me empathize and connect with others.
During the past few months, I have been reflecting more on where I come from, and where I want to go. I've been thinking a lot about this episode from when I was attending an American high school in Brazil: junior year, my teacher encouraged me to apply to a leadership program, which connected some seniors as mentors to freshmen. I initially refused, because I thought that no one would want to have me as my mentor since neither English nor Portuguese was my mother tongue. I did not feel comfortable in those languages, even though the majority of the students were American or Brazilian. Then, that teacher told me that is exactly why I should be a leader -- the majority does not represent the full picture -- there are those who struggle with language, and they would be encouraged if they saw that someone like them can be also be a leader.
As a woman and a Japanese national who spent half of her life abroad, I am a minority or an “outsider” for different reasons wherever I am.
And perhaps that is my biggest strength -- having one foot here and one foot there, knowing that I would never see the full picture (no one does anyways…) and that sparking more curiosity about others’ experiences.
In the future, I would love to help strengthen the connection between two or more groups, whether that means: public and private, one country and another, HQ and local offices etc.
That is also why I love this group, and getting to know so many other fellow Japanese women, and the diverse experiences that you all bring to the table.
Looking forward to getting to you know better!
MIE MIZUTANI
Tokyo
AYAMI KAWASAKI
Shanghai/ Tokyo
My honest answer would be “still looking”…but one thing I’m sure is that I want to always be strong enough to believe my instinct to “love” someone or something.
When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with what to wear for school. Most of my Christmas presents were clothes, and all my okozukai was spent on fashion magazines. Even though I grew up in a domestic Japanese family and didn’t get a chance to even take an airplane until the age of 16, I was always dreaming of working in a city like NY, where I imagined to be the world of “Devil Wears Prada”. This silly dream which grew out of my pure love for fashion eventually led me to study English harder, try the very first study abroad for a month in Canada as a high school student, try the second one at Harvard, and finally visit New York! (I was even lucky enough to meet Tomoko-san there, a woman who inspires me ever since and she’s also the one who invited me to this circle.)
My journey which started with an encounter with fashion somehow took me to the world of design for now, but who knows? In 3 years, I might be saying I want be an astronaut. I think that can be fun as well.
Ka Ya Lee
Cambridge
I come from a low-income, ethnic minority background (在日コリアン３世) in Japan, where educational opportunities were disproportionately scarce, and only 1/8 of my classmates ended up going to college. As a child, I grew up always wondering, "What does a just society look like?" "How can one establish a conception of justice without resorting to relativism?" etc.
In college, I discovered that philosophy (political & moral philosophy & ethics) is the field that addresses these normative questions. I gradually became interested in the topics surrounding educational justice and decided to pursue my Ph.D. at HGSE.
At the moment, I'm working on my dissertation on the normative grounds for educational measurement where I will argue that justice demands a nation-state measure opportunity provision (e.g., access to clean water, air, safe home & school environment, etc.).
My overall goal is to contribute to building a society where children from all walks of life are given equal opportunities, resources, etc. to pursue the life that they want. If I can pursue this goal as an academic, that'd be super, but I'm also open to non-academic jobs (e.g., positions at OECD, UNESCO). Right now, my immediate goal is to do a good job with my dissertation.
MIHO SAKUMA
Washington D.C.
It all began with my decision to leave a well paved path. Driven by a vague instinct, I left one the best universities in Japan to pursue the education I wanted at a small liberal arts college in US - a college that was virtually unknown in Japan.
I didn’t know if it was the right decision, but I was determined to make the decision right. Every single day brought me new experiences and perspectives -- cultivating the capacity to empathize with people with different values while living in the same dorm, realizing that there is no truth in history through classroom discussions (there are multiple interpretations), and experiencing the power of team through the practice at varsity crew team. I started to feel comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.
After graduation, I was back in a path with a narrow definition of success. But, instead of lamenting the loss of such inspiring and empowering community, I realized that I just need to create one. Now, I aspire to create a community with diverse talents, which I believe will make small moments in ordinary days “wild and precious.”