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Greetings,

My name is Dan (Daisuke) Horiuchi and I joined the CPO office of Money Forward Business Company (MFBC) in January 2024.

Starting from April 2024, I will be relocating to the office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where I will be responsible for recruiting local Product Managers (PdMs) and promoting the globalization of Money Forward’s PdM Organization.

I hope this article will be helpful to those interested in Product Management positions and to those who aspire to work in a global and borderless environment.

My Career Background

First, let me briefly touch upon my career history below.

One year after graduating from university and joining my first company as a new graduate, Microsoft's 'Windows 95' was released, and the term 'Internet' gradually began to be recognized in society.

Although I had almost no experience with computer science at that time, I found the Internet fascinating. So I used some of the bonus I received to buy a laptop computer (an IBM ThinkPad, which is now produced by Lenovo) and began experimenting with connecting to the Internet. That experience was what sparked my interest in IT.

Additionally, my experiences as a backpacker traveling through various countries during my student days led me to vaguely think that it would be nice to work in a global environment in the future.

While all this was going on, around the summer of 2000, I happened to discover on the Web that Amazon was recruiting in Japan. Thinking it seemed interesting, I sent my resume to them, which led to several rounds of interviews, and ultimately I was offered a position. This happened just one month before the service was launched in Japan.

About my work experiences at Amazon and Rakuten

Roughly speaking, I spent my 30s at Amazon and my 40s at Rakuten, working for these well-known E-Commerce companies in Japan for almost a decade each. I think I just happened to catch the wave of the times by chance, but I often get asked by various people, 'What's Amazon like?' or 'What's Rakuten like?' So, I will briefly summarize my own experiences from that time (Please note that these are purely my subjective opinions).

Amazon has now become a part of everyday life infrastructure, with services like AWS and Amazon Prime, but looking back around the year of 2000, it was a time before the release of smartphones, and even before broadband networks became common in households. So, the general public perception was that of a mysterious US E-Commerce website that was aggressively investing in growth despite operating at a loss. I also remember that around the time of its launch in Japan, the Japanese mass media often described it as the arrival of the "Black Ships", similar to the US ships that came to Japan in the mid-19th century. (Personally, I've always found it curious, if not exaggerated, why bringing a new service from the US to Japan was likened to the "Black Ships".)

At Amazon, I was initially hired as a buyer, but later I changed my roles and experienced several positions, including project manager and technical program manager (TPM). The role I held for the longest time was in the supply chain management (SCM) domain.

It was indeed a great experience to learn about the fundamental system and philosophy of Amazon during this era. One of the examples is that the feature of 'recommendations,' which is now very much commonplace not only in e-commerce but on social networking services, was already implemented on the website from the early days of the year 2000-2001.

At that time, Amazon's development was mostly done in the US. Essentially, my main job was to properly launch and establish in Japan the business models and products that were becoming successful in the US. Therefore, I believe the required skills at that time were how to effectively handle localization and how to keep projects on schedule by collaborating with the team in Seattle.

Regarding English communication with members in Seattle, I initially struggled with listening during telephone conferences (at that time, there were no video or web conferences, only audio), but I remember gradually getting used to it after a while. I also had many opportunities to travel to the US, so I slowly became more familiar with the team members there.

After spending about 11 and a half years at Amazon, and after a brief stint at another company, I switched to Rakuten, a competitor of Amazon Japan. While I was working at Amazon, I had always thought that Rakuten, with its headquarters in Japan and its engineers based there, seemed like a place where I could be involved in creating something from scratch, a '0 to 1' endeavor, and it appeared to be a good opportunity. Additionally, although I personally did not have experience as an engineer, I was interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the software development process. As a result, fortunately, I was hired by Rakuten as a manager in the logistics development department.

At Rakuten, I was at one point responsible for the program management of global businesses, but for more than half of my time there, I was involved in the management of logistics development. My team had product managers, application engineers, data engineers, and data scientists, and I was also indirectly involved in managing the QA and SRE teams. In Rakuten's development organization, there was a push for globalization in various areas, so it was fun to have the experience of being in touch with international aspects while still in Japan.

The reason why I decided to join Money Forward

Around the time I was turning 50, I began to think vaguely about how I wanted to spend the next decade or the rest of my life as a business person, including the possibility of living outside Japan, and I was considering a career change as part of that process. During that time, just last year (2023), I learned about Money Forward through a referral from one of my ex-colleagues.

Subsequently, after having casual interviews with several people from Money Forward and advancing my analysis of the company, I found myself aligning with Money Forward's MVVC (Mission/Vision/Values/Culture).

Furthermore, I heard that they are planning to strengthen the engineers' recruiting activities outside of Japan, such as in Vietnam and India. As the number of engineers increases, they also want to accelerate the globalization of PdMs. They were looking for someone to drive this area, and I thought that if I were to be hired for that position, not only would my past experience be relevant, but more importantly, it seemed like a very interesting job.

Incidentally, between 2005 and 2010, I often traveled to Southeast Asia on my own during vacations. I had visited Vietnam several times during that period, and even then, I felt somehow that Vietnam and Southeast Asia suited my personality and food preferences, and I thought that someday I would like to live there.

Therefore, when Money Forward offered me a job and asked me to start up a global PdM organization at their Vietnam location, I accepted almost without any hesitation.

Impression after joining Money Forward

Within Money Forward's culture, "Evolution" is articulated as one of the key elements. Personally, I understand this as a message to not simply cling to past successes but to adapt to change flexibly. In that sense, even as a mid-career, I don't feel like an outsider, and I sense that my previous experience can contribute. So far, there has been no gap between my pre-joining expectations and post-joining reality in this regard.

What I want to achieve at Money Forward

I am thinking that it would be great if I could successfully bridge the gap between the young average age and growing economies of Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and the older average age and slowing growth curve of Japan, to present even a slightly brighter future to the world. I hope to contribute to society in such a way.

I believe that by connecting Japan's attention to detail and refinement with the rapidly growing overseas markets, a synergy will be created that can further improve Japan. I also think it would be so exciting if people from Japan could experience the wonderful aspects of other countries and make new discoveries.

In the future, I believe that Japan will further promote 'inbound' tourism using its historical heritage, scenic landscapes, delicious food, and safety and security as attractions. In this context, especially as the workforce in Japan decreases, digital transformation (DX) in all industries, not just tourism, is an unavoidable major issue. Therefore, I am convinced that when DX is advanced and non-Japanese speakers can enjoy stress-free tourism, Japan's value as a tourist destination will become particularly significant.

Personally, I would like to help create such a bright future and successfully pass the baton to the next generations. Therefore, my first step at Money Forward is to leverage our expertise in SaaS development and the product rollout of digital transformation (DX), as well as our global expansion, to initiate new services that connect Vietnam and Southeast Asia with Japan. I am also so excited about this prospect.

To those interested in Money Forward

Finally, I want to thank everyone who has read this article to the end and those who have shown interest.

To be honest, I am not too focused on English skills themselves (although the ability to communicate in English in a real-time manner may continue to be important even with the rapid evolution of AI today). In fact, more than that, I am looking to become colleagues and work with those who value Diversity & Inclusion.

From my experience working in global environments, I am seeking people who can embrace change and dive into the unknown, who through trial and error (and I believe everyone feels somewhat disheartened by failure) can greedily find some learning and carry it forward.

To put it another way, I believe we can manage even if your Japanese language skills are not that strong (in which case, a certain level of English language skills would be required). So, if there are any PdMs out there who want to create things at Money Forward, please feel free to contact me without hesitation.

So, let's all come together to promote Evolution and have fun!