What Most People Know About Me
I moved from Japan to Canada at six, without a word of English, and started hockey years behind kids who'd been on skates since three. A few years later I was elementary school valedictorian and MVP of my hockey team.
At twelve, my family was moving back to Japan. I asked to stay. My father agreed, on one condition: get into one of Canada's most prestigious all-boys boarding schools. I did, and lived away from home from age thirteen. Five years later, in the school's centennial year, I was entrusted with the role of Head Prefect while playing varsity soccer, hockey, and rugby. I continued the pattern into university becoming a two-time Academic All-Canadian, the highest honor for student-athletes in the country.
Professionally, I started as an electrical engineer, then quickly moved into project management. In one year in my twenties, I logged 1,600 hours of overtime on a standard 2,000 hour year. I built trust, rose fast, and was handed responsibility before I felt ready for it. Thirteen years in, I received the promotion I'd dreamed about on day one. I went on to lead 9-figure capital projects across Canada, the U.S., and Japan, and became a Company Officer at the Fortune Global Top 50 company, running organizations of 1,000+ people and $400M+ in annual operations, on leadership teams accountable for P&L in the billions.
I'm a father of five, 4 boys and a girl ranging from ages 17 to 3 years old. We speak Japanese at home, so we are all naturally bilingual. Hockey and the home gym are a constant passion in my life, and still get 5 to 6 days a week.
By any external measure, it's a pretty good story. It's also not the only one
What Most People Don't Know About Me
Underneath the outer success story is a deeper one: a hyper achiever and inner critic shaped early by wanting to make my father proud of me. A belief that the top position titles and the center of the stage was how I'd earn it. So I performed my whole life.
In 2019, my first 360 leadership review showed how much my need to be liked was limiting my leadership. Five years and a lot of uncomfortable deep work later, I retook it. My score had tripled, landing near the 90th percentile of leaders tested. My own leadership transformation taught me something I didn't expect: I'm genuinely fine not being the one at the center, plus I love the deep work of personal development. I love to think strategically and deeply, and I feel real resonance for the people who do have to stand at the center, because I've lived what it costs.
It's part of why I eventually walked away from my corporate executive career, a defined-benefit pension, more leadership upside, and a family that depended on that income. Not a decision I made lightly, but one I needed to make to grow myself and create impact greater than the four walls of any one organization. I'm honestly not sure I'd have made it without the one life experience that changed everything for me. You can read that story here
I know what it is like to hit a milestone, feel good for a moment, and already be striving for the next one. I know what it is like to go long stretches pushing really hard, because my biggest corporate scars came from it: I got lax on checks that mattered, prioritized pace over people, and added pressure to teams already stretched thin. The outcome in front of me mattered more than what was actually needed, but my leadership was not mature enough to see it. I know what it is like to sit alone in reflection. The loneliness that comes from being the one everyone assumes has it together while privately judging every imperfection or mistake.
Every one of those moments traces back to the same root: my self-worth was tied to what I could achieve. It is the same pattern I now see in leader after leader, different contexts but same underlying theme. I'm not telling you this because you need my help, but because it is the reason why I partner with my clients to do this work.
Next steps
A partnership is not something you should commit to halfheartedly, and it is not something I sell through a packaged offer. If what you've read here sounds like where you are, the way this work usually starts is a private conversation. No agenda, no proposal or pitch waiting behind it. Just space to talk through what you are carrying, what you would like to change, and whether partnering together makes sense for both of us.
More details about a partnership can be found here
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