Masato Kurehagi · Chief Information Officer · Japan
Presented to the Board or a committee
Board of directors: systems investment and information security
March 2014–present
Present annual systems investment plans, the staged replacement programme and information-security matters as general manager and then executive officer; not a director.
Reported to a committee
Statutory auditor's review of systems controls
March 2020–present
Report twice a year to the company's statutory auditor on access controls, change management and backup testing, and answer the auditor's follow-up questions in writing.
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Audit, or audit and supervisory committee · Risk and information-security oversight |
I am looking for a first outside directorship or advisory role in a Japanese consumer company whose reputation depends on a few demanding periods each year. That might be a listed specialty retailer, a food maker with its own shops, or a family-owned company that has begun to appoint outside directors. I would be most useful where the company is replacing core systems, depends on a small number of outside vendors, or faces carrier and labour constraints its plans have not yet absorbed. I would prefer membership of an audit or risk committee to an early chair role. I am neither an accountant nor a lawyer and would not present myself as the board's specialist in either; those skills should be represented by others. I would also prefer a company that neither competes with Utsugane nor trades with it, so that repeated withdrawals do not limit what I can contribute.
I would bring a working understanding of how consumer businesses fail their customers at peak moments, and of the systems decisions that make those failures more or less likely. Many boards see technology as a budget line and a security risk. In a seasonal business it is also a capacity commitment: how many orders, deliveries or reservations the company can honour on its busiest days, and which vendors it cannot do without. I can help directors ask whether a replacement plan survives its first peak, whether an outside vendor's knowledge has been documented, and whether a new customer promise has been tested against staffing and carrier limits. I have presented to a board for twelve years but never sat on one, so I would bring operating judgement rather than governance experience. A first appointment should put that judgement to work on an audit or risk committee, with a chair who will tell me when I am managing rather than overseeing.
When our board weighed a single cutover against a staged replacement, the discount and the clean timetable were easy to see; the risk of an untried system meeting its first gift season was not. On another board, I would ask management to show the first peak each stage must survive, the cost of running old and new together, and the condition for switching the old one off. I would also ask who outside the company holds knowledge the plan depends on, and whether it has been written down. My own plan cost more and took longer than the alternative, and I would expect a board to challenge that kind of choice as firmly as a cheaper one. The question I would bring is whether the company has priced the risk it is avoiding, not merely whether the project is expensive.
The carrier's December cap looked like a logistics problem until it meant declining ¥46 million of orders. A board would have been right to ask why the sales forecast had not changed as soon as the cap was known. On another board, I would want seasonal capacity, whether carriers, packers or systems, reported beside the sales plan, with the trade-off stated in money. I would also ask how customers and partners learn about a reduced promise, because our worst confusion came from a catalogue printed before the change. Directors should not set delivery dates, but they should know when a commercial plan assumes capacity the company does not have, and who decided to accept the gap.
I would spend the first months learning how the company earns its revenue on its hardest days. I would ask to see the busiest week of the past year from the customer's side, with complaints, cancellations and late deliveries, alongside the board papers that preceded it. With the chair's agreement, I would visit a shop or service site and a distribution point without management beside me. In committee work I would read the internal audit plan and the systems-risk register together, looking for vendors and individuals the company cannot easily replace. I would keep my questions for the meeting and my operating opinions to myself unless asked; an executive's habit of fixing things is a risk in an outside director. By the end of the year I would offer the chair one candid assessment of where my questions helped and where my background narrowed my view.
My relationships run through department stores, carriers, packaging and ingredient suppliers, two systems vendors and a regional bank that lends to Utsugane. Before agreeing to any appointment I would list them for the chair and the company secretary and ask the company to check its own dealings with each. If a board discussion touched a vendor I still work with, such as Toyasumi Data Service, or a department store we sell through, I would declare the link and leave the room for that item. Sennagare Retail Systems is a former employer; I left in 2009 but would still disclose it. I would carry no information between Utsugane and another board, including supplier prices, carrier terms or gift-season volumes. Time is the other conflict. December is our hardest month, and a board meeting then would need to know that my preparation time is short in those weeks. I would plan around that openly rather than let it surprise anyone.
I am an executive officer of Utsugane and a former employee of Sennagare Retail Systems and Kawatsubaki Department Store. Any company with trading links to those three, or to our main suppliers, carriers and department-store partners, should test my position against its own standards and the exchange's criteria before appointing me. I would accept its conclusion rather than argue for mine.
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA databank is an Indian register of independent directors and has no bearing on board roles in Japan. I have not registered, and the status shown simply records that.