Americans are invested overseas, many times through their own 401k or pension fund. That investment creates an interdependence, a reliance on international businesses for one’s own investment security and growth. Those businesses are governed by Boards of Directors, boards that include scholars like Christina Ahmadjian.
Season 2 Episode 14
Global Interconnectedness Through Business
Americans are invested overseas, many times through their own 401k or pension fund. That investment creates an interdependence, a reliance on international businesses for one’s own investment security and growth. Those businesses are governed by Boards of Directors, boards that include scholars like Christina Ahmadjian.
Christina Ahmadjian is Professor Emeritus at Hitotsubashi University and former Dean of the Hitotsubashi Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy. She is a visiting scholar with the Folks Center for International Business at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business.
Dr. Ahmadjian visited Moore Impact to discuss her experience living and working in Japan, where her scholarship has led her, and the engagement with corporate boards that brought her to Columbia.
Some topics include:
To learn more about Christina Ahmadjian click here
To learn more about the Folks Center for International Business click here
Learn more about the Darla Moore School here
Kasie Whitener (00:00):
Good Morning Point listeners, welcome into Moore Impact. My name is Dr. Kasie Whitener, and I'm your host for the show. The Darla Moore School of Business welcomes you into Moore impact our weekly radio broadcast and podcast. It's our chance to bring the school of business over at the University of South Carolina to the people here, to our make the Point radio.com listeners, and also to the Columbia listeners on local radio on 100.7 The Point. We like to bring our scholars here to introduce the work that they're working on. We like to bring our practitioners here to talk about what's happening in the classroom and how we're engaging with students. We bring our center directors here and they talk a little bit about how they are adding to the experience at the Moore School. And that leads us to our guest today, which is Christina Ahmadjian. She's the Sunoco Visiting Fellow hosted by the Folks Center. And those of you who have listened before, you know that Amy Thompson is the Director of the Folks Center. She was here just a couple weeks ago, and we previewed a little bit, having our conversation with Christina Ahmadjian. So welcome, Christina. I'm glad you're here.
Christina Ahmadjian (00:57):
Thanks, Kasie. I'm so glad to be here.
Kasie Whitener (00:59):
This is a really good opportunity for us to talk about international business, women in international business. You've been working in Japan for 30 plus years, and now you are here at the Sunoco with, as a Sunoco Visiting Fellow. Tell us a little bit about your connection to the Darla Moore School and how we sort of roped you into coming in to stay with us here in Columbia.
Christina Ahmadjian (01:18):
So, I've known the Darla Moore School for many, many years as a business school professor in Japan. And traveling to conferences every year. I would always run into faculty from the, the, the school. And as I think, you know, and, and everybody knows that this is the top ranked international business program in the world. Right. And one of my dreams has always been to visit and become more involved. And as I've met faculty members and for at least 20 years, people have said, oh, you should come and visit. You should come and visit. And finally two year, two or three years ago I had the opportunity to become a Sunoco visiting fellow, which involves coming twice a year. And this is my fifth time here.
Kasie Whitener (02:04):
Oh, that's great. So tell us a little bit about your thoughts on Columbia. What do you think of being here? I mean, we're going into the hottest part of our year, so will you be here all summer?
Christina Ahmadjian (02:12):
Well, so it's, it, I I love Columbia, but I also haven't been here during the summer and I come for about two weeks in the spring and the fall. And so I, I get the best of, of, of the, the weather.
Kasie Whitener (02:25):
Yeah, you do.
Christina Ahmadjian (02:26):
So I'm very lucky. But, but Japan is also brutally hot in the summer, and so I kind of wanna see which is worse, but
Kasie Whitener (02:33):
For the comparison, speaking,
Christina Ahmadjian (02:49):
So, as an undergrad, my major was was East Asian studies. And I studied Chinese because in those days, China had just opened up. It was it was a little after Nixon went to China, but China was, it seemed like this was the future, and I really hoped to have a career doing China business or China law, or doing something about China. And actually what's behind that is that my family, my father's parents were from Armenia. Okay. And were basically refugees from Armenia around the early 20th century. And I grew up at my grandparents' hou When I went to my grandparents' house, no one spoke English, and I think my grandfather never spoke English. And I'd go, and I never spoke Armenian. And so I was used to being in a, a house where no one spoke a language that I understood. And then on my mother's side was Swedish, and they all spoke Swedish at home, and I didn't speak Swedish, and, but we had the cu the customs and the culture and the food. And so I became really, really interested in other cultures and became very cu comfortable, strangely enough, in a situation where nobody spoke my language. So it was kind of, everyone's talking in a foreign language and eating unfamiliar food, and I thought, I'm home.
Kasie Whitener (04:00):
But it didn't make you paranoid. It didn't make you feel like you were being excluded or anything like that. Instead, it feels natural to be in an environment where people don't necessarily speak the same language. I thought
Christina Ahmadjian (04:10):
That was normal for a long time. And, and I, I went to a friend's houses and it would be like, everyone's speaking English and you're eating kind of boring food,
Kasie Whitener (04:20):
Christina Ahmadjian (04:28):
It's, yeah, it was very, it was very strange. And, and, and so yeah, for me that was pretty normal. And so then I thought in college I really wanted to have an international career. Sure. And, and you know, for, for me, international in those days as a high school student was Europe. And I thought, you know, I'll study French and go to France. But when I went to college, I realized that French was not necessarily the road to a international business job that I was looking for, although I'm sure it was. But but people encouraged me to look at East Asian studies. Okay. And so I, I, I kind of looked at the book of, of majors and found Chinese and ended up studying Chinese, spending a lot of time in the language lab going to Taiwan as a for my study abroad and just loving it. So that's not about Japan and, and so
Kasie Whitener (05:19):
Christina Ahmadjian (05:51):
So my family was very much
Kasie Whitener (05:58):
Were, were they supportive? Were they encouraging or was it more of a, like a
Christina Ahmadjian (06:02):
They were neither. They were they were very much what
Christina Ahmadjian (06:52):
And it was a very small program, and the students were great. And I, I completely loved it. It was just a home for me in a very large university. So I, I loved every single minute of it. And when I graduated, I thought, okay, I'll go, I'll go to China and kind of do the China thing. And at that time, there just weren't that many jobs. And I could, there were study abroad programs. There were teaching English programs where you could go to somewhere in China and teach English. And I thought, I'm not sure if I really wanna do that either. And at that very time, one of my professors Ezra Vogel had just written a book called Japan is number one. And this was the time when people were beginning to be really afraid that the Japanese auto industry was gonna take over the US auto industry. Right. That, you know,
Christina Ahmadjian (07:44):
Wait, where did Japan come from? How, what's going on here? And so he wrote a book saying Japan is gonna be the number one economy in the world pretty soon. And was telling, told students, you know, forget about China. You should all go to Japan. And so when I graduated, I thought, okay, rather than teaching English in some Chinese town, I'm gonna go to Japan and learn the secrets to Japan's number one.
Kasie Whitener (08:09):
Okay. I mean, I, I could see being curious enough when a professor says, this is what I think the future is for you to be like, well let me go and prepare myself for that. We are coming up on our very first break, so what we're gonna do is I just wanna tell a couple people or tell, tell listeners where we're getting to. So Christina Ahmadjian with me today. She's a visiting fellow with the Folks Center. We're gonna be talking more about international business. We're gonna be talking about your time in Japan, the work you've been doing with the university, and all kinds of other great stuff here on Moore Impact. It's Kasie in the studio. Don't go away. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Moore Impact. Kasie Whitener here for the Darla Moore School of Business. In the studio with me, Christina Ahmadjian, she and I have been working through her history going through undergraduate and how you sort of had your eyes open to this international career. And were planning to head to China, but were rerouted to Japan through an influential professor. And so you go to Japan and you're gonna work your first real job out of undergrad. What was it like?
Christina Ahmadjian (09:11):
So my first real job, I, I got to Japan, taught English for a year, but then was introduced to people at Mitsubishi Electric at their factory outside of Kyoto. And it was a wonderful factory. They were making TV tubes in those days. Okay. And they, they hired me as an office lady, was the job title. So this was 1982. And women basically if they worked, and they usually worked right after very few went, actually went to college as well. They went to junior college or to high school, they'd work at a company as an office lady, and it would be expected that they'd get married and hopefully to another coworker
Kasie Whitener (09:53):
And leave the workforce
Christina Ahmadjian (09:54):
Retire. Yeah. At around 25. So I was hired by Mitsubishi Electric for this job of office lady, bilingual secretary, even though I wasn't very bilingual. And I show up they give me a uniform to wear, and my first day of work, they give me a pile of ashtrays and say, it's your job to wash ashtrays. And I thought, wait a second. Wash ashtrays. And that was my first and last time of washing ashtrays
Kasie Whitener (11:07):
Right. The the company that I worked for, SYNNEX Corporation, we had an acquisition of a, a Japanese firm. And the women that I worked with in the Japanese firm, they were my counterparts. So I was a corporate trainer, and they were also corporate trainers. And a lot of the conversations that we had offline, you know, when we weren't actually doing the training piece I was fascinated by the way that their work environment was structured and the opportunities that were made available to them. And that was back in 2007, 2008, 2009 timeframe. Yeah.
Christina Ahmadjian (11:35):
It's really changed. Mm-Hmm
Kasie Whitener (11:36):
All right. So you're here, you're in Japan and you're working for Mitsubishi, which is a, a fantastic company they're doing, and, and you feel like you're making some progress, but then decided to go to graduate school.
Christina Ahmadjian (11:46):
Then I decided that even though I really liked the job in many ways and, and it would've been great to grow with a Japanese company, but there wasn't a lot for me to do. And I mean, my skills were basically a bilingual secretary and somebody who gave factory tours and corrected English. And so I thought, I really need to get some, some real skills. And so I went back to the States and entered the MBA program at at, at Stanford. And in fact, it was really hard to get, for me to get into MBA programs because when I'd write the application, they'd say, you know, what kind of business experience do you have? And, and I remember doing an interview with a famous business school, not Darla Moore, and they asked me, what did you do when you were working at this Japanese company?
Christina Ahmadjian (12:30):
And I said, well, I washed ashtrays and I served tea and gave factory tours. They said, that's not a real job and you're not ready to get an MBA. But Stanford was looking for unusual, interesting people. And so I went to Stanford, got an MBA worked as a consultant for a couple years and realized that I was not a good consultant. And so I went back to UC Berkeley to the Haas School of Business to get a PhD. And as a PhD I studied Japanese companies, Japanese management, and Japanese corporate governance. In other words, how Japanese boards of directors worked, how Japanese companies were tied together. And yeah.
Kasie Whitener (13:08):
I'm sorry, I wanna go back to what was it that told you you were not a good consultant? Is there a specific thing that sticks out to you?
Christina Ahmadjian (13:14):
Kasie Whitener (13:14):
Wanna, I, I'm like, are there people listening that need that information for themselves,
Christina Ahmadjian (13:42):
So a a few things,
Kasie Whitener (14:30):
Right. I could see that. And I could think too, as a, in a consulting role, you're really more a curator of other people's knowledge, right? So I'm gonna pull together multiple resources and share that with folks. But as a scholar, you get the opportunity to uncover new knowledge and really be looking at things that people haven't necessarily looked at before and really getting that deep investigation piece.
Christina Ahmadjian (14:52):
Absolutely. And also as a, as a scholar, it's, it's okay to say, well, I don't know that, let me study it. But as a consultant, you can't say it. You can't say that. You can't say it. That why I, yeah. I was just, I was fundamentally kind temperamentally
Kasie Whitener (15:06):
So now you're, you get this PhD program and you, you're studying Japanese governance, Japanese boards, and where did you go from there?
Christina Ahmadjian (15:14):
And So then after I graduated, I went to to Columbia Business School. My daughter at that time was about one. So I had a little baby daughter and went to Columbia Business School and taught there and liked it very much, although it was
Kasie Whitener (16:23):
Oh, no.
Christina Ahmadjian (16:26):
And even my students, I try to say something about Japan. I was teaching organizational behavior management. And students would kind of be, we don't care. How is this going to help us in our jobs at Goldman Sachs? 'cause They all wanted to go into finance. Right. Which was fine
Kasie Whitener (16:41):
Right.
Christina Ahmadjian (16:42):
But it was, it was difficult. But, but Columbia had a great core of faculty in management at, at the law school who studied corporate governance. Okay. They were studying boards of directors mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (17:05):
And take your daughter with you
Christina Ahmadjian (17:06):
And take my daughter and the dog and the whole family
Kasie Whitener (17:08):
Christina Ahmadjian (17:46):
Well, let me answer that question in a little bit different way. Sure. at first, at least, and, and that's different countries have different systems of corporate governance. And and again, the, the system of corporate governance basically is about who is the company accountable for? Right. Who should top management be thinking of? And this fundamental question of who owns the company, right? And in Japan, the question, at least in the post-war era, was that companies are kind of owned by stakeholders. Right. And who, who's what's important are the customers mm-hmm
Christina Ahmadjian (18:40):
Right. And held by supply customers and business partners and things. So nobody really cared that much about shareholders. And there was a big change starting in the nineties where banks started selling their shares because they were there was a banking crisis mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (19:27):
Right.
Christina Ahmadjian (19:28):
It's nice that you're nice to your customers, but we expect you to make money and we expect to see dividends plus an increase in share price. Right. And so that was a big change in Japan. And when I went to Japan, that was going on. And it was very interesting,
Kasie Whitener (19:42):
As you bring that knowledge that that scholarship to Japan, when you get there, are you helping their businesses or were you able in your academic role, able to reach out to these cu to the businesses themselves and say, here's what you can expect from this shareholder stakeholder, which is now a pretty big part of what you're gonna be doing.
Christina Ahmadjian (20:01):
So my, my, my research, when I first went to Japan, I went to Japan for only a year in theory, but I ended up, we all ended up staying so
Kasie Whitener (20:56):
More symbolic
Christina Ahmadjian (20:57):
And the government and the, everyone was looking after them. But the US style was majority, or at least a few outside independent directors caring about shareholders. Right. It was a very different world.
Kasie Whitener (21:10):
This is fascinating to me. We're gonna run to break on the other side. Christina and I are gonna talk a little bit more about our research, but we're really gonna get into the global economy and tariffs and the, the vision that of Japan and how they fit in. Now we'll be right back.
Kasie Whitener (21:28):
Welcome back. It's more impact. Kasie Whitener here in the studio with Christina Ahmadjian, and she is the Sunoco Visiting Fellow hosted by the Folk Center for International Business. We've been talking about business in Japan, and specifically the way that board governance shifted as more American investors started to buy shares of Japanese companies. And as you were there as an academic and eventually transitioned into this board role, you have the opportunity to be an advisor and to help kind of direct those companies as they're growing in this new world with a heavy American commercial involvement, if not government involvement. So, talk Yes. Yes. Talk. Sorry, I didn't mean to give away the punchline,
Christina Ahmadjian (22:16):
Yeah, thank you. So after being an academic in Japan, and I, I got a job at a Japanese business school. I was doing research on, especially foreign investors. And in those days and even now, American investors are very big and very important, but I got a phone call from another Mitsubishi group company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and they said, we're looking for a non-Japanese woman to serve on our board and give us global and diverse opinions of things. And I, I said, no at first
Kasie Whitener (22:53):
And clean ashtrays. Are we going back to 1982? Yeah. But
Christina Ahmadjian (22:57):
It turned out it was a very different world, and they were very determined as were many companies to change the structure of their board, make the boards more diverse, and have a much more global outlook on their boards. Right. So I, I joined the, the MHI board, and, and after that, I've, I've served on a bunch of Japanese boards and continue, I'm on four boards right now. And it was a real transition from being an academic, a researcher and a teacher who could say things like, who owns the company? What do we do about foreign investors to sitting in a boardroom and actually having to make these decisions right. Around what are we gonna do? And, and in whose interests are we working?
Kasie Whitener (23:39):
When you think about the role, so first I wanna go back to this diversity question in terms of them coming specifically and saying, we're looking for a non-Japanese woman. And I can imagine where me, I'd be like, is that what qualifies me to be here? Right. These are things that I didn't necessarily earn being an American woman. Right.
Christina Ahmadjian (24:36):
So we're talking about, actually my first board was not Mitsubishi was I a pharma firm in 2008, and Mitsubishi was 2012. And that was kind of the beginning of it all. And things really perked up around gender diversity in around 2015 when there a corporate governance code was, was introduced. So it was the early days. And in fact, when Mitsubishi when when they called me and they said, we're looking for a woman foreigner, I'm like, no. That's the worst. You know why? You just think only because I'm, I'm a woman. But as, as, as someone a, a, a a mentor said to me, look, this is an amazing experience. Right. And think of, you know, what you can learn and if you hate it, you can, you can quit after a year. But, and so I said yes, and I ended up staying on the board for nine years, which is a long time for mm-hmm
Christina Ahmadjian (25:26):
For a Japanese board. And and realized as you said, that having a diverse point of view really made a difference. And, and, and I also went and determined to say whatever I wanted and to be as disruptive as possible. There you go. And the CEO at that time actually had a list of things and he said, here's, we want you to speak up and give your opinion and be different. And he was very committed. Other people were kind of like, what's, what's hit us and what has happened? Right. But people still remember what I said in my first board meetings. Like, I can't, I don't think anyone has ever said that in a Japanese board meeting before
Kasie Whitener (26:04):
Well, you mentioned the board co just kind of as a toss off, but I want to kind of go back to it. You mentioned the board code being adopted, a, a code code, the governance. Governance. Yeah. Can you explain a little bit what that is? I mean, is this is this a law? Is this a Japanese law? Like how does that work?
Christina Ahmadjian (26:17):
It's well, it's what's called soft law. And so it's it's based on a set of principles and it's a, it's basically comply or explain. Okay. So if you don't comply, so if you say we don't want any women on our board, that's fine, but you have to explain
Kasie Whitener (26:38):
Why. Right.
Christina Ahmadjian (26:39):
And, and so every three years it gets updated. But now there are of course things about responsibility in Japan. It's responsibility to shareholders as well as stakeholders. Right. Paying attention to issues around climate. Mm-Hmm
Kasie Whitener (27:16):
Don't need them to do it deep in their hearts. We just from a, for a betterment, you know, perspective, you just need them to, to do it. Right. But
Christina Ahmadjian (27:22):
At least big companies are generally complying mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (27:43):
Right. So, so we think about the impact of American investors, and in this case, the shareholders that are saying to that Japanese board, like, we wanna see more diverse voices. We know there is, there's research to show that companies that have diversity in those top levels, whether it's racial, ethnic, gender, you know, from different locations, international businesses, like wherever you can get people that are, that you have a spectrum of experience here in the room you're gonna have a more successful governance experience, you're gonna have a more successful company. And Americans have had that kind of, or the investors, American investors have had that kind of influence over Japanese companies. Has this been for the better? I mean, has this made the Japanese economy stronger? Has it made those companies stronger?
Christina Ahmadjian (28:30):
I think it's absolutely been for the better. And I think you see in Japanese companies, this real, you know, from the early days when I first started serving on boards, it was like, oh, we have to have a woman to kind of wait a second. Maybe we don't want a majority there. There's an issue of the, the pool of women, right? Because, you know, when women, like when I started in Japan in 1982 and women were serving tea and washing ashtrays, right? And so you don't have a huge number of executive trained top level women, although that's really changing. But but I think generally big companies, I think have been pleased with the board diversity thing. There. There are lots of, there's, there's, you know, Japanese have lots of as in the States, I think business gossipy magazines mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (29:27):
She's a celebrity pick
Christina Ahmadjian (29:28):
Kasie Whitener (29:30):
Of you listening, I'd be glad to be a celebrity pick for a board. By all means pick me
Christina Ahmadjian (29:35):
So, yeah. So, so there are complaints about that, but I, I think it's, it's, I mean, you look at the Japanese stock market, right? And Japanese in Japan, they talk, they talked about the, the lost decade, which was the decade after the asset crash in 1991. That went on for 30 years. And finally, thanks to diversity, thanks to pressure by foreign investors things have, have, are looking pretty good. The last few weeks have been difficult, but yeah,
Kasie Whitener (30:04):
It's been a, a challenge, I think over the last few weeks for a lot of different nations trying to adjust to some of the changes that are coming from our current administration. Before we get to that, I wanna ask a little bit about your classroom experience here. As a visiting fellow through the Folks Center and the students that you're getting to interact with at the Darla Moore School, are there some specific questions or topics, things that continue to come up from our students that that you think like, yeah, that's pretty astute, or is it all the same sort of like, what's the food like in Japan?
Christina Ahmadjian (30:34):
I, the students, they're very, it, what what's really fun at Darla Moore is there are different kinds of students. And so you have the undergraduates versus the, you know, MIB students versus the, you know students coming from abroad. And you get very different types of of, of questions. And it, it's always really engaging to, to, to talk to them. And, and of course, students with work experience are very different from students with no work experience. And so I just, I love my experience in the classroom.
Kasie Whitener (31:04):
I think that's wonderful. The as you're living in Japan all this time, raise your, raise your family in Japan and, and settling in there, culturally speaking, do you still have that sense of I'm in a room where people are speaking a language that I don't understand and I'm okay with it? Or did you start to fully assimilate as far as a Japanese culture is concerned?
Christina Ahmadjian (31:24):
Every, so, every board meeting and, and all my professional, my teaching is in English, even in Japan. But professionally, I do everything completely in Japan, in Japanese. And I'm always, if I don't pay attention carefully, I'm, I'm back to being a kid and everybody's speaking a foreign language. So it's, it's, it's, it's definitely hard. And I, I never, I, I, I certainly don't feel assimilated. Every, every day I learn something new and every day I realize I can't believe I didn't know that
Kasie Whitener (31:54):
That's exciting. It's fun to be at a part of your career where you're still discovering things. Yeah. And it doesn't feel like things are getting to be old hat. Yeah. All right. Let's talk a little bit about the, so something you and I talked about off air, and I think we've alluded to it through this shareholder experience, and as Japanese companies were moving out of being bank owned to being independent stockholder owned, right? Or investment firms, BlackRock and Fidelity and that sort of thing, they start to then value that shareholder experience and starting to prioritize shareholder value and, and, and stock price over some other things. Have there been do you, have you seen these shifts in the way that individual or the employees that work for Japanese companies, the culture in Japanese companies, have those things been affected by American influence from a stockholder perspective?
Christina Ahmadjian (32:48):
So I think one of the big shifts in, in, in culture in Japanese companies under the board level, has been greater attention to work-life balance. Okay. But what Japanese call work-life balance, and, and you see more and more, at least in Tokyo, which is, is more liberal than than much of, of Japan guys with baby carriages taking their kids to school there's not as much paternity leave is, I think even the Japanese government would like. But that's more and more happening. People don't go out, men don't go out and get knocked down dead drunk with their bosses every night, which was part of the work culture when, when I I started in the early eighties mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (33:41):
We're gonna run to break on the other side. We're gonna wrap it up. We'll be right back.
Kasie Whitener (33:55):
Welcome back to Moore Impact, Kasie Whitener, your host for our Darla Moore School of Business Show here on 100.7, the Point and make the point radio.com. Every Tuesday we bring our scholars in from the Darla Moore School of Business and spend a little bit of time talking about how that scholarship impacts our world and our, and our South Carolina climate, our, our greater Columbia climate. But today with me is Christina Ahmadjian, who is a scholar in Japan and is here visiting with us through the Sunoco Visiting Fellows Program with the Folk Center for international business. And your specific expertise is in Japan and Japanese board governance of a different for companies in Japan. And as we were talking at the break about the interconnectedness of American investors and American companies with Japanese companies and with the Japanese economy, and there's been some disruption in economics here over the last several weeks, really, I mean, since January. And so what, what are your thoughts, what are your impressions on, on what's going on? And, and I know you can't speak for the entirety of, of the country of Japan, but in terms of what you're seeing as far as Japanese companies are concerned and, and the Japanese economy, what are some, some initial thoughts about this disruption we've been experiencing lately?
Christina Ahmadjian (35:14):
Let me just start with talking a little bit about how really interconnected we are. And for example, when I talk about foreign shareholders mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (35:33):
Law enforcement,
Christina Ahmadjian (35:34):
Law enforcement mm-hmm. Officers, they're through their pension funds. They're the ones that are, are holding our shares in Japan as a board director I am watching out for, for their interests mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (36:52):
The, and I, so there's this kind of sense that globalization is an, was an experiment, right? The borders kind of open up in the mid to late nineties as we start to see the internet reconnecting everybody creating this kind of seamless flow across borders in a, in a global experience. Companies are going overseas. We see foreign direct investment where companies are building up satellite offices and all these other different nations and that kind of thing. And then there's this sense of shifting workload and, and different types of jobs into different markets. And I think that seems to be where most of this backlash is coming from, is that those, the jobs that were here in the United States are now jobs that are in overseas markets. And, and those, you know, there are individuals in, in people in in our country that wanna be doing that work and want that work brought back here. So there's a lot of economic policies in place to try to bring jobs back or create a different kind of manufacturing environment here in the United States. And you mentioned some of the board companies from Japan having operations in Mexico. Is there an opportunity for any of those companies to maybe reinvest in, in, in South Carolina, I would say but then also in the United States. I mean, what kinds of investment are we seeing in the US from Japanese companies?
Christina Ahmadjian (38:12):
So there's a lot of investment in South Carolina and Japan is is one of the biggest investors, foreign investors in South Carolina, I believe. But a lot of those investments are not new. They, they're, they're, they've, they've been going on for, for a long time. And I think they're, they're certainly not a cheap labor kind of investment, but a real close collaboration, I think. And for example, the tire industry, right? Go to the Bridgestone factories, it's pretty amazing. And I was recently in one of the Bridgestone factories here, and it's like Japan except they're Americans. It's like the best of all worlds. And you don't get a sense that this is a Japanese com factory or an American factory. This is a factory that is doing its very best to make some amazing products, right? You can't put giant tires on ships and export them from Japan because they're heavy and they're big, and Japan doesn't have that many people.
Christina Ahmadjian (39:05):
But related to jobs, when I visit factories either when I'm here in South Carolina or for my boards and visiting factories in the US or even in Thailand, and even in, I haven't been to Mexico yet, but there aren't that many people. And so if you look at the cutting edge manufacturing technology they're mostly machines. And you'll go, I, I go to these giant factories that are making, whether it's spark plugs or cable or whatever, and it's like, where are the people mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (40:22):
I think you're onto something as we're talking about this automation piece. I think people underestimate how much automation exists in these factories, and we just only have to go up the road to BMW to see the amount of automation that they've brought in over the, over time, once Scout Motors comes in and we start building these electric vehicles, it's gonna be a highly automated process as well. And so there's these kinds of spillover effects, though, when these big companies invest, and we think about all the firms that come up to support them and all the entrepreneurial opportunities that arrive with those businesses when they arrive. So I think there's, there is a maybe an argument to be made that the jobs are not with the company itself when the company comes, but instead with those support organizations that will rise up to support the company when it gets here. At least that's the, the fingers crossed hope here in Richland County as we think about some of these big investments that, that we've made. Yeah. as your work here at the Folk Center is underway what are some of the things you hope to accomplish in your in your time while you're here?
Christina Ahmadjian (41:20):
So there's a, a long list of things I wanna accomplish, but I think one of the biggest is, is I really want to bring the Japanese point of view to, to South Carolina and to to Darla Moore students and, and faculty. And I, I think Japan has been kind of forgotten since the 1980s. And there's been a real focus on China and China business, and I, I, Japan's an extraordinary place. And, and it's an extraordinary economy. It's dealing with things like population decline and many things, but it's a truly globalized economy, I think on, on, on, on many levels. Very sophisticated and especially manufacturing technology with a lot to give, but a lot that America can also give to Japan. And so I, I like to think of myself as myself as, as, as a, a bridge there and, and the tariffs and the, you know, all the Trump issues aside.
Christina Ahmadjian (42:17):
I mean, Japanese companies have always invested in the United States, and one of my board companies, for example, recently made a big investment in the us before the tariff talk. And now, now people are say, oh, they were so smart that they made the investment, but it was because America is a great place to invest and it's an important market. So for me to see, I just wanna be much more of, of a bridge, be bringing ties and, and information. So that's kind of what I'd like to bring. I also just love being in Columbia. I, I love the city of Columbia. I love the restaurants. I love walking around campus. I love the people. It's, it's just a real pleasure for me to be here.
Kasie Whitener (42:53):
Well, we're definitely glad to have you here. And we love to be praised about our restaurants and our campus
Christina Ahmadjian (43:14):
I guess it makes me so sad to see this sort of rejecting of this offer from Japan, because it would be great for neon steel for the Japanese company. It would be great for Japan, but it would be great for the us. And you know, one thing that, that it's very clear from, from working in Japan for so long, how well Japanese companies treat workers mm-hmm
Kasie Whitener (44:05):
Sometimes you're the advocate I can
Christina Ahmadjian (44:08):
But they're so concerned about employees anywhere. And I think also because the Japanese population is decreasing, the idea of these are our people. Mm-Hmm
Kasie Whitener (44:36):
Well, and like I said, this current administration has reopened the conversation about it and is wanting to revisit it. So there's a possibility that that deal still may happen. And when we think of the the disruption or the volatility of international relations, it's really important that we remember how interconnected we really are and how many of us are invested in Japan without even really knowing it. Through different mutual funds and through different indexes the way that we have diversified our own portfolios. We have a skin in the game, we have a stake in whether or not the Japanese economy thrives. Right. What are you looking forward to the most this summer that, or this time that you're gonna be here at in Columbia? I know that you won't be around for the really hot weather, but what, what's the one thing you're looking forward to the most? Well, unfortunately,
Christina Ahmadjian (45:20):
I'm only gonna be here for another, another week.
Kasie Whitener (45:23):
And now I have to wrap it up. Yes. I'm so sorry,
Christina Ahmadjian (45:29):
Thank you so much, Kasie. This was great.
Kasie Whitener (45:31):
This has been Moore Impact. When you learn more, you know more, when you know more, you do more. Thanks for listening.