Masato Kagami, Chairman of the Board, Globalway Inc.

We want to provide a service that is loved, not just used, to 10 billion people.

Masato Kakami, Chairman of the Board, Globalway Inc.

■ Profile

He worked as a systems analyst and derivatives trader at a foreign financial institution. In 2001, he joined a foreign software company, a leading SOA product company. As a regional manager, he achieved the world's best sales results, contributing to over 50% of the license sales of the Japanese branch for two consecutive years. In 2005, he left the company and founded Globalway Co., Ltd., where he became the representative director.

Globalway Group operates a wide range of businesses, including the company review website "Career Connection," a corporate platform building service, and "Time Ticket," a service for buying and selling personal time. Its founder and current chairman is Masato Kagami. A baseball player from the countryside, he went on to university in the United States, and after gaining experience as an engineer, trader, and salesperson, founded his current company. We spoke to him about his career so far and his thoughts on his work.

■ A rural baseball boy goes to America

 I started playing baseball in the second grade of elementary school and dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player. I went to high school on a baseball scholarship and entered university on a baseball recommendation. However, I was the same age as Ichiro and played against him a few times. This experience made me realize, "I'm not good enough to go pro. I need to think more seriously about my future!" I was born in Gifu, a city famous for its pottery industry. My father and grandfather ran pottery-related companies. I remembered vaguely wanting to start my own business, so I reread a book by Hideyo Noguchi that I had at home. Then, I thought, "Maybe going to America will help me change myself," and decided to study in the United States. In America, I learned to find answers through trial and error. I realized that simply studying textbook content is pointless because I can do it myself, and that it's important to expand on the textbook content and ask myself, "What do I think about it?"

■Experience as an engineer, trader, and salesperson with the aim of starting a business

 When I became interested in running a company, it was just around the time that companies like Microsoft were emerging, so I was thinking about starting a business in the IT field. To gain money and knowledge, I joined UBS Securities, a company with a high level of IT expertise and good salaries, where I worked as an engineer developing systems used by traders. At the same time, I also wanted to gain experience as a trader, so I transferred to Deutsche Securities and became a trader. Furthermore, to gain experience in running a company, I wanted to move to a smaller company, so I turned down an offer from Goldman Sachs and worked in sales at a small company with about 10 employees that had expanded into Japan. When I moved to that company, my annual salary was about 600 million yen, which was about half of what I had made at Deutsche Securities, so people asked me, "Are you stupid?" But when I achieved the top sales in the world, my annual salary was about 7500 million yen. I used that money as capital to found Globalway, the company I founded.

■Career Connection will help make Japan a better place to live

I originally had experience in B2B, so I used that experience to start working in systems development, creating software ourselves and implementing it for customers. The first thing I started was a business version of Mixi. The reason I created this service is because I have always felt that Japan is a very monolithic country compared to the West and other countries, making it difficult to live there. For example, there is a strong culture of nitpicking rather than praising people. I created what is now Career Connection to break down this monolithic culture and give people all over Japan the freedom to do what they want.

■ Creating a service loved by 10 billion people

CareerConne is now a website used by 8000 million people. And because we have diversified our business, we are able to receive work from large corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises, and individuals, making it difficult for the company's portfolio to deteriorate. For this reason, in the future I would like to expand horizontally into Asia, such as India and Indonesia, and create related businesses. I also want to create a service that is loved by 10 billion people someday. What's important is to be loved, and it's not enough to simply have 10 billion users. I want to make this a business that all those people will think, "It was worth using it." I believe the moment I achieve this will be the time to quit my job.
I also want to work on hiring and developing talented young people who will work hard.

■ The reward is "self-satisfaction"

When we went public in 2016, I felt like our service was being recognized, and I was happy about that. However, I think the reason we've been able to continue this far is just selfish satisfaction. It's a selfish sense of responsibility, like "If I don't do it, the world won't change." I think it's similar to the feeling a police officer has at the scene of a crime, thinking "If I don't do it, who will?" This self-suggestion has allowed us to continue this far.

■The appeal of Globalway

I hate anything that isn't rational, so I've been working on creating a work-from-home system since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, about 96% of employees, excluding those in the administrative department, work from home. We also offer reduced hours until a child reaches the fifth grade of elementary school. Women who have received medical or other guidance from their doctor during pregnancy can also work reduced hours. We also strive to create a comfortable working environment, such as by implementing a full-flex system that allows employees to work between 7:00 and 22:00 with no core time. However, because this system is based on fulfilling our responsibilities, I believe we must manage and operate it in a way that doesn't negatively impact employee performance.
Many of the people who work here are honest and straightforward, and are passionate about their work and don't compromise, and we are looking for people like that. Therefore, people who say, "It's fine if I just do my job half-heartedly!" are not acceptable.

■ College students should create assets for themselves

Whether it's a hobby or something you study, it can be anything, but I want you to try to find at least one thing you can be proud of. And I want you to try to make friends who will become your assets. Once you enter the workforce, you start to think about things like, "Will this be useful for work?" It's comfortable to be with people in similar situations to you, but friends who aren't based on money, like teammates who worked hard together playing baseball despite all the conflicts, are irreplaceable, so I want you to cherish them.

Interviewed by Student Newspaper Online on May 21, 2022 by Hayato Tane, a fourth-year student at Chuo Gakuin University