Keiko Kasaharu · Chief Product Officer · Japan
Presented to the Board or a committee
Board of directors: product strategy, development spending and field-safety matters
April 2021–present
Presents the annual product plan, major development proposals and field-action reports as an executive officer; not a director.
Reported to a committee
Audit and supervisory board
April 2021–present
Reports annually on product-safety reviews, field actions and the parts-period commitment.
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Audit and supervisory committee · Voluntary product-quality or sustainability committee |
I am looking for a first outside directorship at a Japanese manufacturer whose products serve people over a long life: care beds and lifting equipment, baths and water heaters, food-processing machinery or medical devices. I want a board that is asking how its products should change as its customers and its installers age, how long it should support equipment in the field and what its connected products can honestly claim. I would serve as a committee member under an experienced chair, most usefully on an audit and supervisory committee or a voluntary product-quality committee. I do not bring capital-markets or acquisition experience, and the board should look elsewhere for it. I would bring field knowledge, a designer's understanding of trade-offs and the habit of asking who pays for a product decision after the order is signed.
Most boards of manufacturers see product quality as a set of indicators: claim rates, field actions, development spending against plan. I can help directors look behind those figures to the decisions that produce them. I know how a design brief fixes the working conditions of the people who use equipment for fifteen years, how a parts period becomes a cost that someone must agree to carry, and how a connected product can produce records that look more conclusive than they are. I also know the dealer's view, because I spent six years repairing other manufacturers' machines. That background suits a board whose products are bought by one party and used, cleaned or repaired by others. I have presented to a board for five years but have not been a director. I would contribute questions grounded in field evidence, and I would need to learn the legal duties and committee practice of an outside director from colleagues who have carried them.
The rice-line decision taught me that a specification promised to customers can quietly set the working conditions of their staff. On another board, when management presents a product plan built around output, price or energy figures, I would ask who loads, cleans and repairs the product and whether they were tested with it. I would not expect the board to choose a loading height. I would expect it to see the trade-off that management has made, including the orders it expects to lose, and to be told who disagreed. If the plan offers no such trade-off, that may mean the question was never asked. A board can usefully request that evidence before the forecast is fixed, because afterwards every change looks like a shortfall.
The connected oven showed me how a sincere marketing claim can promise more than the product can prove. As a director, I would ask management to show which claims about a product depend on customers' own procedures, who reviewed those claims and what happens when the product's data are incomplete. I would also ask how long parts and software support will continue, because a connected feature that stops working leaves the customer with a promise and no record. These questions are not hostile to growth. A product that admits its limits keeps the customers who rely on it, while an inflated claim can turn into a field action, a lost account or a regulator's enquiry. The board is the last place where that difference can be noticed before launch.
Before the first meeting I would ask to visit one plant, one service operation and, if the company agrees, one customer site where its products are in daily use. I would read the last three years of field-action reports and claims data alongside the board minutes that discussed them, to see how quickly bad news reached directors. I would also ask how the company tracks parts availability and how long its installed equipment has been in service, because those figures rarely reach a board until they arrive as a customer complaint. In the first two meetings I would mostly ask questions and take notes on how decisions are framed. I would ask the chair and the senior outside director where they want my product experience used and where they think I lack grounding, particularly in finance and in the company's own regulation. By the third quarter I would expect to contribute to the committee's work on product-quality reporting. At the year's end I would ask the chair for direct feedback and agree with myself whether the time I am giving matches what the seat requires.
The plainest conflict would be commercial. Kamadosei buys stainless steel, controllers, burners and refrigeration components, sells through dealers and competes with other kitchen-equipment makers. I would decline any seat at a competitor or at a company with a material trading relationship with us, and I would ask the nominating company to check its own suppliers and customers against our list. Confidential information is the second risk. I know our development plans, cost structure and dealer terms, and none of that would travel to another board; equally, nothing I learnt there would come back into a Kamadosei product brief. If a matter arose where my knowledge of a supplier or competitor created a doubt, I would disclose it and leave the discussion. Time is the third. My employer must approve the role, and twenty-four days a year must hold during a field action or a product launch at Kamadosei, not only in a quiet year.
I would ask the nominating company to test my independence against the exchange's criteria and its own standards. A company that buys from, sells to or competes with Kamadosei should not treat me as independent, and I would say so before my name went forward.
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The Indian independent directors' databank applies to appointments in India. My interest is in Japanese boards, so I have not registered and do not need to.