A customer's view for a Japanese board, offered with my employer's consent
My contribution to a board
Most outside directors on Japanese boards come from finance, law, the civil service or the chief executive's chair of another company. Few have spent a career on what customers actually do, and fewer still have had to explain an unwelcome decision to millions of them. I would offer a board that missing view. I can read a complaint log, a brand-tracking survey and a pilot result side by side and tell a board which of them deserves action, and I can tell when a management paper describes customers it has not met.
Japan's Corporate Governance Code asks companies on the Prime Market to make at least a third of their boards independent, and many companies have added outside directors in recent years. I think the most useful ones bring an operating discipline the board lacks. Mine is the discipline of testing before deciding: agreeing a measure in advance, running a trial and stopping on the date we set if the measure is not met. I would ask for the same thing when management proposes a change that customers will feel, whether a price revision, a channel closure or a new terms-and-conditions regime.
I would also bring experience of three public-facing decisions that went against internal preference and cost something visible: refunds in cash during 2020, a published explanation of a price increase and the removal of links from our own messages. In each case I learnt that the board's job is to see the customer consequence before it becomes a headline. I am not an accountant and would not seek a seat on an audit committee or an audit and supervisory committee. I would be most useful on a nomination and compensation advisory committee, where judging how leaders treat customers is part of judging the leaders, and on a sustainability or risk committee.
Judgement in practice
01
A rural surcharge deferred in favour of contracts with towns
In 2025 our finance division proposed a surcharge for contract shippers on parcels addressed to our 212 rural depots, to recover part of their higher cost. The arithmetic was correct. My concern was where the charge would land: shops would pass it to recipients in the villages, most of them older, who could not choose a different address or carrier. I recommended deferring the surcharge and putting the same effort into contracts with municipalities, under which towns pay for a combined parcel, grocery and watch-over service and we share loads with another carrier. The board deferred the surcharge for two years and asked for the contracts' results at each review. Twenty-three municipalities have signed. As a director I would ask the same question of any price proposal: who pays in the end, and could they have chosen otherwise?
02
Stopping advertising for a promise the network could not keep
In 2022 our corporate sales division began advertising next-day delivery from Kansai to every address in Shikoku, to win business from online retailers there. Within two months our depot data showed that 14 per cent of those parcels were arriving a day late, mostly in the island's southern valleys. Sales wanted to keep the campaign running while operations added capacity. I stopped the advertising and asked for the claim to be narrowed to the areas where we could meet it, which cost us two shipper contracts that sales had nearly closed. The full claim was restored eight months later, once late deliveries were below 2 per cent. The lesson I would take to a board is that a marketing claim is a promise the operating side must keep, and that a director should ask to see the operating data behind it, not only the campaign plan.
03
Declining a shipper's offer of customers' purchase data
In 2023 one of our largest online-retail shippers offered to share customers' purchase histories with us so that we could predict which recipients would be at home. The model would probably have improved our first-attempt rate. I recommended declining the purchase data and accepting only delivery preferences that customers had chosen to share. Japan's personal-information law generally requires consent before personal data is passed to a third party, and our legal team was clear that the proposal would need consent we did not have. My own concern went further: customers who learnt that their parcel carrier knew what they had bought would trust our notices less, at the very moment we were asking them to trust us more. The board agreed. As a director I would expect management to bring proposals like this with both the legal view and the trust view set out, before anything is signed.
My first year on a board
My first year would be a period of listening, organised around three questions rather than a calendar. What do customers experience that the board does not see? I would ask to read a sample of complaints and contact-centre records, visit at least two places where the company meets its customers, and sit with front-line staff for a day without management present. How does the board decide things that customers will feel? I would read two years of board and committee minutes and follow one recent decision, perhaps a price change or a channel closure, from the first management paper to its result. And what does the board expect of me? I would ask the chair and the lead outside director, early, which questions they hoped I would ask.
I would not try to change the board's agenda in that year. I would take a full part in nomination and compensation discussions, and at the year's end I would ask the chair for direct feedback and use the board's own evaluation to judge whether my contributions had been useful or only frequent.
Conflicts and their management
Kazemachi comes first while I am its executive officer, and any outside seat would need the explicit consent of our president and board. I would decline any company that competes with us in parcels, freight or luggage forwarding, any online marketplace or retailer that is a material shipper with us or a competitor, and any railway, airline or airport operator with which Kazemachi Travel Baggage holds a counter agreement. I would also decline companies connected with Kazemachi's founding family. Before accepting, I would disclose my shareholding through the employee association and my directorship of our subsidiary.
If a relationship arose after I joined, for example because the company began sending significant volumes through Kazemachi, I would declare it to both boards at once, leave any discussion where it was relevant and offer to step down if it became a lasting feature. Time is the other conflict. Annual meetings in Japan cluster in late June, which is also a demanding month for us, so I would agree the meeting calendar a year ahead and keep the twenty-four days I offer clear of my executive diary.
My independence statement
I am a full-time executive officer of Kazemachi and hold its shares through the employee shareholding association. I would accept an outside seat only at a company with which Kazemachi, its founding family and I have no business, family or financial relationship of substance, and I would set out every relevant fact before a board considered me. Whether I qualify as an outside director under the Companies Act of Japan, or as independent under the exchange's standards and the company's own criteria, is for that company's board to decide on what I disclose.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Kazemachi Home Delivery Co., Ltd.
Board of Directors: brand, the delivery-choice programme, the April 2024 price revision and the text-message policy
April 2021–present
Presents quarterly as an executive officer; not a director of the company and holds no vote.
Reported to a committee
Kazemachi Home Delivery Co., Ltd.
Sustainability committee of the board: driver workload, second attempts and the rural delivery programme
October 2022–present
Reports twice a year on second-attempt rates by region, rural service measures and the municipal contracts.
Member of a committee
Kazemachi Home Delivery Co., Ltd.
Crisis management committee (executive): impersonation messages, service disruptions and incident communication
April 2021–present
Member of the management committee chaired by the president, responsible for the first public statement on incidents; not a board committee.
Served as a director
Kazemachi Travel Baggage Co., Ltd.
Board of the wholly owned luggage-forwarding subsidiary
June 2022–present
Director in an executive capacity, approving the subsidiary's budget, counter locations, pricing and partner agreements with airports and stations.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Sorahane Airways Co., Ltd.
Board of Directors: refund and credit policy during the 2020 cancellations
April–May 2020
Wrote and presented the paper recommending cash refunds by default; the board adopted it with amendments.