78: Michael King, President, SAS Institute

Michael King shared great insight into how to become a successful
business leader in Japan. Mr. King’s arrival in Japan may have
been accidental but this did not stop him from having a long and
prosperous career within Japan that has lasted 22 years. Despite
originally being from Ohio, he began to work in the Asia Pacific
25 years ago within APAC in Sydney Australia before eventually
moving to Japan as the General Manager for Sterling Commerce as
Japan was the hot spot for business action and opportunity.


 


His time at Sterling was integral as it was his sink or swim
moment. With no experience of business in Japan and leadership
skills, he quickly adapted to the environment around him and
began to grow and develop his skills. Mr. King began to
understand the importance of hard work ethic. His work increased
ethic allowed him to understand the sales process better and
interact with Japanese business.


 


Despite not knowing the language at first, he did study, but he
realised it was not necessarily important to know Japanese when
working in Japan. Mr. King learnt that as a leader of a team to
succeed, he needed to learn how to listen to his team and read
the non-verbal cues his team would send his way and thus,
developing trust.


 


After his time at Sterling and later Borland he became the
President of Citrix Systems for 7 years which reinforced the
necessity of listening to the team and creating trust. Through
his experience as a leader, he came to Citrix knowing how he can
grow the company, which he succeeded in doing. After a stagnant 5
years, he formed a vicious and successful sales team which led to
the acceleration of revenue growth. Through this team, he learnt
to become proactive and lead rather than sit and take orders
which allowed the team to create widespread awareness of who
Citrix are.


 


After his time at Citrix, he spent a year at Autodesk using his
previous knowledge to help them change their business model to
allow them to grow and increase revenue. While at Autodesk he
learnt more about managing large groups of people and bridging
the gap between the expectation of headquarters and the channels.
After his short but fruitful year at Autodesk, he began working
at the Japanese company Rakuten.


 


While at Rakuten Mr. King developed a more intense understanding
of working in Japanese business and leading a team of 1200 people
as the CIO. Mr. King had become interested in what it would be
like as an end-user which drove him to Rakuten in combination
with working for one of Japan’s best CEO’s and businessmen
Hiroshi Mikitani. Mr. King learnt a variety of lessons at Rakuten
such as using data to optimise customer experience and developing
new solutions to problems. His time at Rakuten was the gap to
where he is now at SAS as the President. At SAS he strives to
drive the engagement of his team and consumers.


 


Mr. King’s 22-year long career in Japan has taught him a range of
valuable lessons that have helped him become the successful
businessman he is today. He claims that in order to succeed in
Japan you need to understand that accountability, listening, and
trust are integral.