123: Yumiko Murakami, General Partner & Founder, M Power Partners

Yumiko Murakami is the General Partner and Founder of M Power
Partners, Japan’s first ESG-focused global venture capital
fund. The organization was founded by Ms. Murakami, along with
Kathy Mastsui and Seki Miwa. Ms. Murakami was born and raised in
Japan but studied in the US and spent a significant part of her
adult life abroad.


Upon returning to Japan, Ms. Murakami was shocked to experience
the Japanese consensus-driven leadership style. Ms. Murakami
observes this consensus-driven culture and the labor market
structure leads Japanese people to become risk averse. In large
Japanese companies with lifetime employment, there is little
incentive to taking risks and putting one’s reputation or chance
of a promotion at stake. This notion of low-risk tolerance in
Japan applies to start-up companies as well, as there are many
legal and structural problems to start businesses in Japan.


 


Ms. Murakami does point out that things are changing. The
Japanese government is trying to change the legal framework to
push start-up initiatives. Ms. Murakami explains, when it comes
to innovation and creating new businesses, the role of start-ups
and entrepreneurs is critical. Thus, proactive initiatives are
taken by the government and private sector leaders. Ms. Murakami
sees tremendous potential in Japan to start creating this healthy
ecosystem. She hopes if there is enough sense of crisis among
leaders, things will move quickly. Additionally, many talented
young people are eager to join start-ups or even starting their
own business, which is a relatively new phenomenon in Japan.
Things started to change around 2000 in the US where there was a
shift in student employment interests. In the past, the labour
market discouraged employees from taking risks, but young people
today have more bargaining power as they are in high-demand.


 


To keep people motivated, Ms. Murakami thinks employees need to
feel they have ownership and have the responsibility to make the
organization better. With her organization, M Power Partners, Ms.
Murakami feels everybody has a fair chance of voicing their views
during the decision-making process. M Power is a small team, and
there is not much of a hierarchy, although this becomes tricky
when the company grows into over a hundred people. The core
culture in their fund is to nurture a sense of inclusiveness,
especially since the three founders including Ms. Murakami have
always been a minority during the majority of their career. Since
they are all different, they know that they can offer interesting
perspectives that many do not see.

On advice to achieving success in Japan, Ms. Murakami says it is
important for international people who come to Japan to
understand the Japanese culture and values, and realize what
values they can bring to their leadership role. They would have
to ask themselves, what is important about them as a person and
how do they want to construct their relationships with new
colleagues in Japan, setting aside any cultural differences.


 


Ms. Murakami additionally points out that Japanese women have
been a secret weapon for international companies for a long time
because they are more open-minded to hire female professionals
compared to Japanese companies. So when Japanese companies are
not looking at this female talent pool, there is an opportunity
for international companies to hire talented Japanese women.


 


For Ms. Murakami, leadership is not something that one could
claim by having a title but, something that one should
demonstrate through action. Ms. Murakami prefers a leadership
approach where she grows together with her team and learns from
each other.