Revolution is the word

Toru Hasegawa's career at Nissan has taken him to Taiwan and Indonesia, where he turned the company's fortunes around after the Asian financial crisis. The managing director of Nissan Middle East tells Lorraine Chandler why he's not a typical Japanese businessman.

Why are executives in the car business reluctant to talk about themselves? I'm beginning to suspect that, upon reaching a senior position, they have to take an oath that binds them to speak only about cars.

Why else would they break into a cold sweat when asked about their personal lives? Could it be that they don't have a life outside the automobile business, so dedicated are they to the smoothly purring, shining mechanical masterpieces?

It takes a long time before I can extract any information from 47-year-old Toru Hasegawa. He shows signs of alarm when I ask his parents' and sister's names, so I take it very slowly before posing any other personal questions.

Hasegawa tells me he's not a typical Japanese man. While many Japanese respect and thrive on tradition, he concentrates on the future rather than the past and constantly seeks ways to improve things.

"I like revolution rather than evolution," he says. "While 60 to 70 per cent of people follow established procedures, I'm the opposite. I prefer to start from scratch, setting my targets and really going for it."

There's no doubt that he is a driven man. Even at school, he studied harder than the notoriously hard-working average Japanese student. Like many boys, his childhood dream was to become a pilot, but his myopia put paid to that idea.

His parents ran a small company, but that never figured in his plans for himself. Instead, he dreamed of working in a big multinational and becoming an international businessman.

There's no doubt Hasegawa has achieved his goal as he's now responsible for Nissan's operations in the Middle East.

Japan's second biggest car manufacturer, Nissan sells 102,000 cars each year in the Middle East and Hasegawa plans to increase its market share even more by delivering better customer service, enhancing the brand image and expanding into North Africa.

The UAE remains the highest per-capita market in the Middle East, with 32,000 Nissan cars sold here every year.

Hasegawa attended the prestigious Keio High School in Tokyo, and went on to graduate with a BA in economics from Keio University at the age of 22. Even at university he worked, teaching maths, English and Japanese to junior high school students.

Keen to expand his horizons, during one university holiday, he lived with an American family in San Diego for a month.

"Thirty years ago, it was unusual for a young person to do something like that, so it was a very new experience for me. I noticed that the family's life was very different from the life of my parents. While in Japan people were more interested in work, the Americans seemed to be good at spending their leisure time."

While the young Hasegawa was impressed by this family, it didn't deter him from putting every ounce of his energy into achieving his goals.

In 1981, he decided to join Nissan (then Datsun) which, at the time, was well known a s a mass exporter of cars. He managed to get through the strenuous application process and for six years he worked as a staff member in Nissan's international PR department.

Under a company scheme, he was able to buy his first car at the age of 23 - a silver 300 2X sports car.

"It had great acceleration and engine sound," he says wistfully, adding sotto voce that it was a great help when it came to getting opportunities to date.

His years in PR exposed him to Nissan's top executives and made him aware of the company's direction. He then moved into the international advertising department, where he learnt about working with agencies and putting together good communication packages for customers.

"I had to squeeze the budget to achieve the same thing with smaller amounts of money," he says.

He was also responsible for putting together the Nissan stands at international motor shows in Geneva, Frankfurt and Paris.

"It was then that I really felt like an international businessman. But I was always thinking, 'What is our brand about?' I didn't want it to be faceless; my job was to improve on that."

In 1989, Hasegawa was moved to Nissan's Australia and New Zealand operations department, based in Tokyo.

"This was the typical vehicle export job that I had hankered after since joining the company," he says. "Advertising and PR are very important but they don't directly make money. Because of the sheer size of the market I was working for, I learned everything about the export business in the three years I worked in that department."

In 1991, he moved on to the position of a sales manager in Taiwan for Yulon Motor Company, the Nissan Taiwan distributor. In 1993, he went on to work in product planning in Taiwan for a year before transferring to a Yulon subsidiary for sales and marketing until 1996. These years offered him invaluable experience and he gained a better understanding of the market.

"If we were in Tokyo, we couldn't influence sales, but in Taiwan, we were directly involved in sales and I was involved in everything - from promotion to pricing to product planning."

His Taiwan sojourn was to stand him in good stead. Returning to Japan, he was promoted to manager of Nissan's Taiwan operations department. Then in 2001, he was promoted to the position of president of Nissan Motor Indonesia.

This was the most challenging position of Hasegawa's life. A financial crisis hit East and South East Asia in 1997 and 1998 and Japanese motor companies suffered a 70 per cent slump in sales, forcing Nissan to close its Indonesian production plant in 1998.

His job was to restructure and reopen the plant and make it a success. He set up Nissan Motor Indonesia to deal with manufacturing and sales, while establishing Nissan Motor Distribution Indonesia to take over distribution.

He revelled in the opportunity to transform the company's fortunes in Indonesia. In 2001, 2,800 cars were being sold there each year, with 250 employees.

By 2004, sales were 12,200 and the staff had swelled to nearly 700. He was partly spurred on by the knowledge that his predecessor in Indonesia was Toshiyuki Shiga, who is now the chief operating officer (COO) of Nissan in Japan.

"It was Shiga San's (Mr Shiga's) baby, so I felt a lot of pressure to protect as well as help the market to grow," he says. "But even he was overwhelmed by what I had achieved. It was the most successful era in my life and now I'm copying some of those strategies to make my mark in the Middle East."

There's no doubt that Hasegawa San will make a lasting mark here. He arrived in Dubai on December 31, 2005. His first day at work in the UAE was on January 2, 2006.

Today, Nissan is one of the most popular car brands in the Middle East, but if Hasegawa has anything to do with it, the definition of bigger, more popular, a best seller will be redefined.
 
I
I am aggressive, particularly at work. I have a strong passion to realise my goals and I'm very proactive. That's my philosophy in life. When you start a new venture, set some goals. When you reach them, set some more new goals.

I will do anything to achieve my targets, even if it means wiping everything out and starting from scratch. While other Japanese people want to hold on to tradition, I want to improve things. And there are no limitations where that's concerned.

I've developed my philosophy myself. My parents are very typically Japanese in that they are conservative. They've been happy to operate small companies, but my dream, even as a child, was to work in a huge multinational. When I was working in Taiwan and Indonesia, people used to ask me, "Are you really Japanese?" because I was so atypical.

I think that when you're organising events, it's easy to get things 90 or 95 per cent perfect. It's the final 5 or 10 per cent that could turn out to be difficult. That's something I learnt when I was organising the international motor shows.

People expect them to be perfect and you have to go after the smallest of details to ensure it is in place, in order to make things go smooth.

I've always worked hard and when I leave Nissan I would like to establish my own company. My father, Kiichi, is 77 and he is still working, running a small real estate company with my mother, Hiroko. So that's (what) I see myself (doing) too.

But when the children (Mami and Rina) have grown up, I'd love to take a journey with my wife to the Mediterranean, where we'd eat some bouillabaisse (fish soup) in Marseilles.

Me

Me and Taiwan:
I worked for Nissan in Taiwan for four-and-a-half years. I got on well with the people when I was working there and I spent two years learning Mandarin, which is a bit similar to Japanese.

The Taiwanese like the Japanese because it was a Japanese colony for 50 years (from 1895 to 1945) and we made a big contribution to its development and education, so much so that there is a lasting legacy of respect for our country.

Me and Nissan in the Middle East:
Nissan has helped me realise my life's dream of working in international business. Indonesia was my biggest challenge because of the tough times the company had faced there and the fierce scrutiny I was under Shiga San, the COO.

We needed to increase sales, while making the company (appear) credible to headquarters and contribute to operations while also being a good model for subsidiaries. I was very satisfied with my progress and I find myself using some of the same strategies here in Dubai.

I'm excited about being in the Middle East and am in the process of setting a very clear direction for the company to follow here. When I arrived, I decided to change the business processes to enable more efficiency.

Before I came, each function within the business was isolated, without sufficient communication. I've been working to make it more integrated and cross-functionally linked, and I've also strived to motivate the staff further.

I want to improve the communication with NSCs (national sales companies/distributors) around the region, and also intend to improve sales in Saudi Arabia, which currently stand at 41,000 a year.

Nissan has a strong base here because it entered the market in the early stages, right back in the 1950s.

I think for any brand to build a positive (image), it's necessary for it to take a leadership position in a segment.

Me and my family:
I met my wife, Midori, in the public relations department of Nissan and we got married in 1987. We have two daughters - Mami, 13, and Rina, 15.

The whole family came with me to Indonesia, but this time I did not want to disturb my daughters' studies. They (and their mother) are in Tokyo and I miss them a lot. I feel like it was my decision to come to Dubai and I don't see why I should turn their lives upside down.

My wife is a very calm person and I respect her tremendously. Sometimes, when I am back home and sit around with a distant look on my face, she reprimands me because she knows I am thinking about work. Her words help me detach myself from that attitude and bring me back to reality.

As a father, I'm very gentle and share a loving relationship with my daughters. You often find there is a generation gap between teenage daughters and their parents, but we are lucky that we don't have any antagonism between us.

My daughters are very sweet and gentle with me. I find it very difficult to have any sort of conflict with them. In fact, my wife and I have never once argued in all the years we've been together.

I teach my children to be honest and to never trouble others. Consideration (for others) and patience are very important virtues in Japanese culture. If we're upset about something, we (express it and come out with it) gradually instead of being very loud about it.

Myself
How do you deal with difficult times?
I'm not a person who does something and then thinks about it. I prepare well for any task, even if I'm pressed for time. Even when I'm driving, I use my time to think and plan ahead.

What was the most difficult time in your life?
Well, I'm lucky that nothing too bad has happened to me personally, but it was a very tough time during the Asian crisis in 1998 and (afterwards in) 1999. At one stage, it looked like Nissan would face bankruptcy. Then Renault bought a 44 per cent stake, Carl Ghosn took over (as president in 2000, then as CEO in 2001) and things got better.

Since university I had made targets and plans that I had worked hard to achieve. I'd spent nearly 20 years at Nissan and my friends and family were wondering what was going to happen to me (during this transition stage). Many of my good friends at Nissan left the company. That was a really difficult time for me, but I got through it.

Have you found it hard to adjust to living here?
Maybe for someone who's more typically Japanese, Arab culture might seem very different. I've mainly been exposed to Dubai, which is a very international city. I've been amazed at the level of luxury in most GCC hotels!

Security and cleanliness in the GCC are outstanding compared with many other countries. The continuation of the improvement of 'quality of service' will enable GCC cities like Dubai to become truly world class.

Why do you think Japanese cars are so popular?
Because they're the best! I think their quality is the highest, in terms of performance, service and value for money and that's what makes them so appealing.

Is there anything that you'd like to change about the Japanese?
Sometimes we can be too isolated, not mixing so much with others. Nissan in the Middle East is exceptional, because we have 15 nationalities (on staff).

But in Japan itself, we need to adopt a more international outlook and more people need to learn to speak English. As a foreigner, you would find it very difficult to communicate in Japan.

You've moved around in your job. Do you like the constant challenges that this presents?
I like to come to new markets and motivate the people. I'm the right person to be working close to the market and I wouldn't like to be buried away in headquarters.

I enjoy giving leadership and direction to my employees. I always advise them to maintain a fighting spirit and constantly improve themselves.