Episode #123: Yumiko Murakami, General Partner & Founder, M Power Partners

Yumiko Murakami is the General Partner and Founder of M Power Partners, Japan’s first ESG-focused global venture capital fund. The organization was founded by Ms. Murakami, along with Kathy Mastsui and Seki Miwa. Ms. Murakami was born and raised in Japan but studied in the US and spent a significant part of her adult life abroad.

Upon returning to Japan, Ms. Murakami was shocked to experience the Japanese consensus-driven leadership style. Ms. Murakami observes this consensus-driven culture and the labor market structure leads Japanese people to become risk averse. In large Japanese companies with lifetime employment, there is little incentive to taking risks and putting one’s reputation or chance of a promotion at stake. This notion of low-risk tolerance in Japan applies to start-up companies as well, as there are many legal and structural problems to start businesses in Japan.

Ms. Murakami does point out that things are changing. The Japanese government is trying to change the legal framework to push start-up initiatives. Ms. Murakami explains, when it comes to innovation and creating new businesses, the role of start-ups and entrepreneurs is critical. Thus, proactive initiatives are taken by the government and private sector leaders. Ms. Murakami sees tremendous potential in Japan to start creating this healthy ecosystem. She hopes if there is enough sense of crisis among leaders, things will move quickly. Additionally, many talented young people are eager to join start-ups or even starting their own business, which is a relatively new phenomenon in Japan. Things started to change around 2000 in the US where there was a shift in student employment interests. In the past, the labour market discouraged employees from taking risks, but young people today have more bargaining power as they are in high-demand.

To keep people motivated, Ms. Murakami thinks employees need to feel they have ownership and have the responsibility to make the organization better. With her organization, M Power Partners, Ms. Murakami feels everybody has a fair chance of voicing their views during the decision-making process. M Power is a small team, and there is not much of a hierarchy, although this becomes tricky when the company grows into over a hundred people. The core culture in their fund is to nurture a sense of inclusiveness, especially since the three founders including Ms. Murakami have always been a minority during the majority of their career. Since they are all different, they know that they can offer interesting perspectives that many do not see.

On advice to achieving success in Japan, Ms. Murakami says it is important for international people who come to Japan to understand the Japanese culture and values, and realize what values they can bring to their leadership role. They would have to ask themselves, what is important about them as a person and how do they want to construct their relationships with new colleagues in Japan, setting aside any cultural differences.

Ms. Murakami additionally points out that Japanese women have been a secret weapon for international companies for a long time because they are more open-minded to hire female professionals compared to Japanese companies. So when Japanese companies are not looking at this female talent pool, there is an opportunity for international companies to hire talented Japanese women.

For Ms. Murakami, leadership is not something that one could claim by having a title but, something that one should demonstrate through action. Ms. Murakami prefers a leadership approach where she grows together with her team and learns from each other.