Takumi Yanagisome · Chief Strategy Officer · Japan
I would bring a supplier's view of healthcare strategy. Most boards in eldercare or medical services see manufacturers and distributors from the buying side. I have spent twenty-five years on the side that must honour supply commitments, and four before that in a hospital dispensary that felt the consequences when they failed. I can help a board examine whether a growth plan depends on commitments that partners can actually keep, whether a large customer or supplier has become a concentration nobody chose, and whether a partnership abroad changes the company's relationship with the customers it already serves. I have prepared and defended proposals that declined revenue in front of a board, so I am comfortable asking what a plan should refuse. I have not been a director. I would expect to learn from the chair and from directors with operating experience of care services, and I would not present a manufacturer's perspective as the answer to questions about patients, residents or staff that others know better.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Board of directors
April 2021–present
Presents the annual strategy discussion and proposals on transfers, customer agreements and licensing; an executive officer, not a director.
Reported to a committee
Audit and supervisory committee
2024 and 2025
Reported on the risk review of the Kurenaigawa agreement and on the investment case and fallback use for the film line.
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Voluntary nomination and remuneration advisory committee · Investment or strategy review committee, where one exists |
I am looking for one outside directorship at a Japanese company whose strategy is shaped by the ageing of the population: an eldercare or home-care operator, a medical and care-supply distributor, or a healthcare service business preparing for a listing. A company facing consolidation in its own sector, or weighing its first partnership abroad, would make best use of what I know. I would prefer to join an existing committee, including a voluntary nomination and remuneration committee, before being asked to chair one. I am not seeking a seat at a pharmaceutical manufacturer, where conflicts with my employer would be too frequent, and I would not want a board that expects me to speak for the manufacturing industry. Twenty days a year is a realistic allowance alongside my executive role.
The 2021 transfers taught me to ask who must do the additional work behind a revenue line. For a care operator, a plan to open facilities or accept more referrals may depend on nurses, care workers or pharmacists the company has not yet hired, in a labour market that tightens as Japan ages. I would ask management to show staffing and supervision assumptions beside the revenue forecast, and to say which commitments it would decline if those assumptions proved optimistic. I would also ask how quickly the company would tell referrers or partners that it could not help. Our eight-week delay in 2021 showed me that a slow refusal can hurt a partner more than a fast one. A board's job is not to impose a smaller ambition on management, but to confirm that the plan's commitments rest on capacity that exists.
The Kurenaigawa proposal offered a decade of volume, and two experienced colleagues valued that predictability. What concerned me was the mechanism inside it: prices tied to public reductions while our costs rose, and exclusivity that would outlast the customer's own reorganisation. On another board I would read long agreements with the same questions. Which clauses move value automatically, and in which direction? What happens if the counterparty merges, is sold or changes its strategy? What share of revenue, staff time or capacity will the agreement occupy in its fifth year? I would ask for that analysis before approval rather than after, and I would want it to include operating consequences, because our directors only grasped the concentration fully when it was described in terms of plant staffing. A sound agreement survives that scrutiny; a weak one usually shows itself in its termination provisions.
I would spend the first months learning how the company earns its revenue and where its obligations to residents, patients and public payers sit. I would ask to visit facilities or distribution sites in different regions, and to meet the people responsible for care quality, compliance and staffing as well as the executive team. I would read three years of board materials and the company's explanations under the Corporate Governance Code, so that I knew which questions directors had already settled. In my first two meetings I would mostly ask how decisions reach the board and what evidence management wishes it could present. By the end of the year I would hope to have contributed to one substantive review, such as a partnership, an acquisition of a smaller operator or a long-term supply agreement, and to have asked the chair for candid feedback on whether my questions helped the board or merely reflected my own industry.
My employer manufactures for 58 pharmaceutical companies, and through them our products reach hospitals, pharmacies and care facilities across Japan. I would therefore exclude any company that is a Tateyukari customer, a competitor in contract manufacturing, a supplier of our ingredients or equipment, or a prospective partner in our licensing work. Beyond those exclusions, I would list for the nominating company every relationship I could identify, including distribution links and shared advisers, and ask its board to assess them. I would not carry customer pricing, product plans or partner negotiations from one company to the other, and I would leave any discussion that touched Tateyukari's interests. If such a conflict arose repeatedly, I would resign rather than remain a director unable to take part. Our president's approval would be a condition, and I would ask both boards to review the arrangement each year.
I have never been an outside director, and whether I would count as independent is a question for the nominating board rather than for me. I can only describe my position fully: my employment, our 58 customers, our suppliers and partners, and any distribution links I can find. The board should then apply its exchange's standards and its own criteria to that list.
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The databank is an Indian register for independent directors and has no role in the Japanese appointments I am considering. I have not registered with it.