TerraSky Inc. President and CEO Hideya Sato

When I was a student, I worked part-time as a cram school teacher a lot. Thankfully, there were many students who wanted to take my classes, and thanks to that, I was able to earn a fair amount of money during the summer holidays. This experience as a cram school teacher honed my presentation and communication skills. While standing in front of the class as a teacher, I was also able to put myself in the other person's shoes and engage in dialogue to help them deepen their understanding. The skills I gained there have been extremely useful since I entered the workforce.

After graduating, I got a job at IBM Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of the American computer company IBM. I had studied as an engineer at university, but started out in sales, targeting small and medium-sized businesses. Even as a junior employee, I was tasked with proposing a system that required a large investment to the president of a company, which was a great learning opportunity for me to hear the honest thoughts of those who run a company.

I joined IBM during the time of mass hiring, so there were 1,800 people in my class at the time. In that environment, I was determined to "do my best," so I would grab senior employees and bow my head and ask them to teach me, and I would come up with my own ideas and learn from them every day. Sales cannot be done by myself, so I was able to get work and build a track record by figuring out how to get the cooperation of people in the company.

My mother ran a company, so I dreamed of becoming a president from a young age. At first, I was determined to become president at IBM, but around five years after I joined the company, there were over 10,000 employees. Only one of them could become president. Looking at my extremely talented colleagues, I objectively judged that it would be difficult to become president among them, so I considered starting my own business.
At that time, I was asked to join Salesforce.com as a member of the launch team for their Japanese subsidiary, and I made my first job change to study management.
Salesforce.com is now a globally renowned company, but at the time it was virtually unknown. Many people were worried about storing important information in the cloud and using it in their daily work, which was a difficult experience. However, the US is ahead of Japan in the IT industry. Having seen examples and market trends in the US, I was confident that it would become popular in Japan as well. I focused on marketing and PR, and developed the market.

In 2006, we founded TerraSky as a system integrator specializing in cloud computing. We are the first "cloud integrator" in Japan. We use our technology and knowledge to help our clients utilize Salesforce and cloud systems more effectively and grow their businesses.

"Getting information quickly" is something I value as the president of a leading cloud company. I put to use the sensibilities I've honed over the years, proactively meeting people, gathering new information from newspapers and other sources, and exploring opportunities to utilize it. I can't cause trouble for our customers who have placed their trust in me. A spirit of challenge alone won't do. It's extremely difficult to incorporate new ideas, propose them, and implement them while maintaining both reliability and stability. I decide whether to adopt new technology by communicating closely with customers who are receptive to the challenge and with employees who will implement it.

I want to work with people who are highly professional. In the IT and cloud industries, which are our main battlefields, new things emerge every day, so we have to keep studying and keep up. There are many people at TerraSky who are happy and enjoy studying. Also, since information is gathered not only by studying but also by sharing it, I would like to work with people who enjoy both studying and sharing it, with the same goal in mind.

This applies to both university and after joining the company, but it's important to work honestly and with all your might. Even if there are things you don't like, keep working until you're satisfied. It's also a great learning experience to see the negative aspects clearly. If you think deeply about your worries and take action with confidence, the results will definitely be good.

Student newspaper WEB coverage on November 24, 2020

　 Aki Kawanami, 3rd year student at Tsuda University

Kaisei Tsujiuchi, 3rd year student at Nihon University / Aki Kawanami, 3rd year student at Tsuda College