#203 Ryota Tanozaki: From Pouring Drinks to Pouring Innovation into Japan’s Hotels

Summary

Chief Change Officer Podcast Episode #203: Ryota Tanosaki – From Pouring Drinks to Pouring Innovation into Japan’s Hotels

Release Date: February 27, 2025
Host: Vince Chan

In Episode #203 of "Chief Change Officer," host Vince Chan engages in an enlightening conversation with Ryota Tanosaki, the President and CEO of Tavist. This episode delves into Ryota’s remarkable career journey, his strategic leadership in the hospitality industry, and his philosophies on resilience and personal growth. For listeners who seek inspiration and actionable insights on navigating career transitions and driving organizational change, this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom.

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Introducing Ryota Tanosaki

Vince Chen opens the episode by introducing Ryota Tanosaki, highlighting their shared academic background as MBA classmates at Chicago Booth. He underscores Ryota’s profound connection to Japan, both professionally and personally, noting his admiration for Japan’s culture of craftsmanship and modernization. “As a business professional, I'm always amazed by Japan's culture of craftsmanship and its blend of tradition with modernization,” Vince remarks ([02:35]).

From Sales and Marketing to Management Consulting

Ryota begins by outlining his early career at Tantori, a beer and whiskey manufacturer, where he spent five years in sales and marketing. Seeking to expand his strategic and execution capabilities, he transitioned into management consulting. “I wanted to cultivate not just sales and marketing capability, but also strategy building capability and executing it,” Ryota explains ([05:46]).

Over the next twelve years, Ryota worked with various management consulting firms, tackling complex projects that provided deep insights into business strategy and execution. One standout project involved turning around a struggling department store in a rural Japanese city plagued by population decline. “Building strategy is totally different from executing strategy. In order for us to execute strategy as a manager, as a leader, you have to always consider people,” Ryota shares ([09:13]).

The Catalyst for an MBA

Vince shifts the conversation to Ryota’s decision to pursue an Executive MBA at Chicago Booth. Ryota candidly discusses his concerns about career stagnation and his desire to embrace global opportunities. “I started thinking why don’t I challenge more. I want to challenge not just in domestic cities in Japan, but also globally,” Ryota reveals ([11:28]).

This decision led Ryota to manage e-commerce operations at Transcosmos and subsequently transition to Facebook Japan as the Head of Client Solution Manager. His role at Facebook involved collaborating with the country manager to develop and execute strategic initiatives, further honing his leadership skills.

Embracing Career Transitions and Resilience

Vince reflects on the ubiquitous nature of career changes at different life stages, emphasizing the importance of embracing change proactively. He highlights how Ryota’s journey embodies the concept of turning insecurity into a positive driving force. “Change is inevitable, and embracing it can lead to unparalleled personal and professional growth,” Vince asserts ([15:43]).

Ryota agrees, sharing his passion for building teams and businesses. He emphasizes the necessity of embedding technical skills and digital experiences into his career to stay relevant in an evolving market. “I have to embed more technical skills and digital experiences through my career,” he states ([15:43]).

Handling Setbacks with Perseverance

The discussion moves to managing both successes and setbacks. Ryota attributes his ability to navigate challenges to his unwavering perseverance. Reflecting on his unexpected role at Transcosmos, he shares, “If you want to build something great or make a great thing, perseverance is quite important” ([18:56]).

Despite facing role misalignments and industry disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic and the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, Ryota remained steadfast in his mission to drive innovation in the hospitality sector.

Leadership and Fostering Resilience in Teams

Vince probes into Ryota’s approach to fostering resilience within his team. Ryota outlines a three-pronged strategy:

1. Mission and Vision Communication: Clearly articulating the company’s mission to provide technology solutions for small and medium-sized hotels and ryokans. “Our mission is to provide technology for small and medium-sized hotels and ryokans to thrive,” Ryota emphasizes ([22:32]).

2. Strategic Clarity: Developing and sharing a clear strategy that differentiates Tavist from competitors. “We have to provide a strategy, share strategy with stakeholders, including employees,” he explains ([25:39]).

3. Leading by Example: Demonstrating leadership through active engagement with clients and partners. Ryota often visits local cities to meet potential clients, showcasing effective strategies in real-time. “I quite often visit local cities to meet some of the potential clients,” he notes ([27:07]).

These strategies ensure that his team remains motivated and aligned with the company’s long-term goals, fostering a culture of resilience and proactive problem-solving.

Teaching and Mentorship

Beyond his executive role, Ryota shares his experience as a faculty member at Globalist University, where he teaches marketing and strategy. He views teaching as an extension of his leadership philosophy, aimed at nurturing the next generation of business leaders. “Training and nurturing them is also quite important,” Ryota affirms ([29:24]).

Influential Reads: Books That Shaped Ryota’s Leadership

Ryota recommends two pivotal books that have significantly influenced his leadership approach:

1. "Innovate Glimmer" by Clay Lisdensen: This book transformed Ryota’s understanding of how small and medium-sized enterprises can compete against larger corporations. “Even products focused on small and medium-sized customers can win over the great products or great companies with large corporations,” Ryota explains ([30:30]).

2. "The High Growth Handbook" by Elad Gill: Providing practical insights into building and scaling startups, this book inspired Ryota to document his strengths and weaknesses to foster transparency within his team. “I just write down everything about me and share that kind of note with my employees at Tavist so they can learn, okay, who is Ryota, what kind of strengths he has, what kind of weakness he has,” he shares ([30:30]).

Concluding Reflections

As the episode draws to a close, Vince reflects on the importance of writing and reflection for clear thinking and problem-solving, tying it back to Ryota’s emphasis on strategic communication and leadership. The conversation ends on a hopeful note, with plans for future in-person interactions and mutual appreciation for the insightful dialogue ([35:44]).

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Key Takeaways

• Strategic Leadership: Effective leaders differentiate between strategy formulation and execution, emphasizing the importance of aligning teams with the company’s mission and vision.

• Adaptability and Continuous Learning: Ryota’s career exemplifies the necessity of flexibility and ongoing education in navigating diverse career paths and industry challenges.

• Resilience Through Perseverance: Overcoming setbacks requires unwavering perseverance and a steadfast commitment to long-term goals.

• Mentorship and Teaching: Sharing knowledge and mentoring future leaders extends an executive’s impact beyond their immediate organization.

• Influential Literature: Strategic reading can profoundly shape leadership philosophies and operational strategies.

Notable Quotes

• Ryota Tanosaki ([09:13]): “Building strategy is totally different from executing strategy. In order for us to execute strategy as a manager, as a leader, you have to always consider people.”

• Ryota Tanosaki ([11:28]): “I started thinking why don’t I challenge more. I want to challenge not just in domestic cities in Japan, but also globally.”

• Ryota Tanosaki ([15:43]): “I realized that I was quite excited about building team and building business. Not just building the great strategy and letting clients execute it.”

• Ryota Tanosaki ([18:56]): “If you want to build something great or make a great thing, perseverance is quite important.”

• Ryota Tanosaki ([22:32]): “Our mission is to provide technology for small and medium-sized hotels and ryokans to thrive.”

• Ryota Tanosaki ([25:39]): “We have to provide a strategy, share strategy with stakeholders, including employees.”

• Ryota Tanosaki ([30:30]): “Even products focused on small and medium-sized customers can win over the great products or great companies with large corporations.”

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For those eager to outgrow themselves and harness change as a superpower, this episode offers invaluable insights from a leader who has successfully navigated multiple career transitions and driven innovation in a traditional industry. Subscribe to "Chief Change Officer" on LinkedIn, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube to continue your journey toward personal and professional transformation.

Transcript

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[Vince Chen]

Hi everyone. Welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change. Progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. We fly all the Way from US to Tokyo, Japan I've always felt a special connection to Japan. My first trip overseas with my family took us to Osaka Nagoya in Tokyo when I was just nine years old. Later, during my first year at Yale MBA, I joined the first ever study trip to Japan, where 15 of us explored Japan's business culture, visiting companies like Shiseido, Toyota, ntt, docomo and the Japanese government, including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. I even wrote a paper about the Japanese economy and banking industry after the trip. Between 2017 and 2019, I've been involved in Actech Japan, an international conference on the future of education technology, where I've been featured as a speaker for three years. As a business professional, I'm always amazed by Japan's culture of craftsmanship and its blend of tradition with modernization. And as a traveler, I can't get enough of the Japanese hospitality. In this episode, I'm talking with Ryota Tanosaki, the president and CEO of Tavist, who's innovating the Japanese hospitality industry. Ryota and I were MBA classmates at Chicago Booth. Since graduation, he's faced some fascinating yet unexpected career transitions for those unfamiliar Tapist. Originally part of a joint venture with SoftBank in 2019 with the headquarters in India, it was rebranded and localized as Tavist around 2022, with Ryota stepping up as the CEO. Tebi means truffle in Japanese. As you can imagine, as successful as his appointment sounded, disappointment came during a very challenging time postponement of the Tokyo Olympics game and the COVID situation, both of which rocked the travel industry. Over the next 20 minutes, Ryota will share not only his own career transformation, also how Tapas has evolved during an incredibly challenging period for travel. I'll attach the press release about the company's background in the show notes for those interested. Without further ado, let's welcome Ryota Tanosaki.

[Ryota Tanosaki]

I I want to hear on my career and after that maybe you will ask some of the details for transition timing? Yeah. First after college and I joined Tantori, a beer and whiskey manufacturer, sales and marketing Especially after a five year journey at Santoruli, I decided to move toward management consulting firms because I wanted to cultivate not just sales and marketing capability, but also strategy building capability and also executing it. After that I joined several management consulting firms and spent around 12 years. After that I decided to pursue Executive MBA in Singapore at Chicago Booth. After coming back from Singapore to Japan, I got an opportunity to manage e commerce business under BTO company called Transcosmos. After working for Trans Cosmos for 10 months. At the moment Facebook reached out to me. Why don't you become a head of Client Solution Manager at Facebook Japan? So that position is like playing a role, the co worker at Facebook Japan. So collaborating with country manager to develop strategy and then execute strategy. So that kind of role. And then I spent four years at Japan. I transited from Facebook to Oyo Hotels and then I changed the name from Oil Japan to At Tavist. So I have been here for four years at Tavist. So that's my career.

[Vince Chen]

When I was starting out, a lot of my friends heading off to business school with big dreams of becoming CEO one day. The plan always seemed pretty straightforward. Get an MBA first, then join one of the biggest consulting firms, McKinsey BCG to tackle a bunch of business challenges across different industries. Then maybe at some point they launch their own business or start climbing the corporate ladder somewhere big. Become the CEO, cfo, CEO somewhere for them, mba, first consulting mix. But you kind of flipped the script a bit. You spent five years in one of the biggest corporations in Japan in a functional role in sales and marketing, then went into management consulting and stayed there for over a decade. Later pursued MBA to get, I would say, some kind of extra edge. Now, before we jump into your experiences at Tapist, I'm really curious about your consulting days. Could you tell us about one of those projects, maybe one that stands out as particularly memorable or that gave you some deep insights?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

One of the memorable projects that I experienced was at Frontier Management Inc. A Tandara consulting firm. That project I played a role of COO department store located in a very rural area in Japan. Because of declining population in the rural city, they were struggling to increase revenue because they wanted to turn around their business. They invested a lot of money and lent a lot of money from banks to build new shopping mall next to their existing department store. Frontier Management was hired by biggest bank, biggest lender to the company to turn around the company. That project was quite challenging. However, it was quite fulfilling because it was the first moment where I not just built a strategy, but also execute a strategy with employees of that company. So at some moment I learned. So building strategy is totally different executing strategy. So in order for us to execute strategy as a manager, as a leader, you have to always consider people. Because unless people are engaged with strategy and motivated to execute a strategy, company cannot move forward.

[Vince Chen]

I spent two years with you in Chicago Booth as classmate, yet I've never asked you the next question I'm going to ask you now and you give me your honest answer. What actually triggered you to get an MBA at Chicago Booth at that point in time?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Frankly speaking. In fact, at the moment when I was engaged with that project at Frontier Management and at the department store, I felt concerned that oh, my career could last in a rural city and my entire career ends. So that was my concern at the moment. I started thinking why don't I nevillage what I experienced so far globally gradually thinking I want to challenge more. I want to challenge not just in domestic cities in Japan, but also globally. And then I consulted with my boss, the president of Frontier Management Inc. About the opportunity to work globally. At some moment, my boss was considering to develop the office in Singapore. They provided me with the opportunity to start developing the global office in Singapore. Of course I grabbed that kind of opportunity. But at the same time, I wanted to pursue MBA concurrently because I wanted to up the corporate ladder and I wanted to acquire business network outside Japan.

[Vince Chen]

Ryota, as you were sharing your story, I did a quick Google search. Actually three searches in about 10 seconds. I typed in change career at 30. I got about 2 billion results. Then I searched change career F40. I got over 1 billion results. Finally, I entered change career at 50. I found over 1.5 billion results. So altogether roughly 4.5 billion results in 10 seconds. About change Career. I haven't done any other keyword searches. I'm sure if I go deeper, I will find more interesting insights. So what does this search mean? It shows that at certain stages of our lives, a certain age, we are either compelled or forced to change careers or we have a strong desire for change. In today's job market, I would argue that we should embrace this change and be prepared to initiate change on our own terms. In your case, you failed. Insecure. Some might call this a midlife crisis. I prefer to see it as a positive sense of crisis or a constructive insecurity. Why is it positive? Because feeling insecure drives you to take action. It pushes you to to improve your security, it increase your chances. You fight for better job prospects. You move out of your country, you move out of your comfort zone. You went for an MBA degree. You network with people from different industries and countries. This expands not only your horizons, but also your opportunities. Turning your sense of insecurity into a positive force in your life. Would you agree with my assessment?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Yes. At Frontier Management, I realized that I was quite excited about building team and building business. Not just building the great strategy and letting clients execute it. So that was my transition moment. It was quite natural for me to transit from consulting world To a conflict world. At that moment, social digital marketing was quite important for population to accelerate their growth. And also e commerce platform was prevalent like Shopify and others. I just considered, okay, I have to embed more technical skills and digital experiences through my career. So I chose brand Cosmos and then Facebook. So that's my intention at the moment.

[Vince Chen]

You talk a lot about business strategy. That has been a major theme in your career life. Would you say you are equally strategic about every career move you've made so far?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

But at France Cox, so it was not strategic. Right. Because it was only for 10 months and unfortunately I decided to toward the face of the big horse. In reality, before joining France personalized I sword my role could be to build new e commerce company in Japan. But the reality was that I was to manage a port of companies or e commerce companies located in Southeast Asia. Because Transco of course bought a variety of e commerce companies located in Southeast Asia. So they were struggling and decided to divest some of them. So that was totally different from my expectation. So I just started looking for another opportunity. So that was not my intention, but maybe it was strategic, but it was unfortunate for both of me as well as Francisco.

[Vince Chen]

How do you handle both setbacks and successes? People looking at your career might say, wow, you're incredibly successful. But we all know that behind every success there are tons of challenges you've overcome. In fact, a lot, a lot of challenges, a lot, a lot of setbacks to support one instance of success. What is your philosophy for managing both the ups and the downs?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Yeah, the great question, perseverance is quite important. As a Trans Cosmos, what I expected was totally different. I pursued different journey just after 10 months work at France Cosmos. But I always think if you want to build something great or if you want make a great thing, perseverance is quite important.

[Vince Chen]

So what you're suggesting is managing both the highs and the lows, the setbacks and successes really comes down to perseverance. Right? I remember when you moved from Facebook or Meta to Tapist, which was called Oyo Oyo, originally from India, a travel tech company. That was a fairly tough period of time. It was no joke. Tell me, how did you tap into your perseverance to navigate a company through the early days of COVID then the Tokyo Olympics postponement, and then now back to what we might call normal.

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Three months after I joined Taoist that I placed and then I had to lead restructure actually in terms of organization, in terms of the contract with customers. At the same time I had to Build new mission, vision and strategy. At the moment, our investors, especially SBKK Softbank Telecom Corporation, decided to make a local executive leadership, which is me, for years at the past. So I didn't expect. I continued to work for Tavist for such a long time because Covid lasted for three years. Right. So it was quite tough. But I always believe so. Perseverance is quite important for leaders to build a great company or make a significant impact. Make a significant, positive impact on society. I'm here right now.

[Vince Chen]

You use the word perseverance and often leaders like to use another buzzword, resilience. I totally get the concept as I've had to practice, practice resilience myself over many years. But as a company leader, how do you impart this mindset, this resilience to your team? I'm not talking about operations or technology resilience, I'm talking about people, the human beings around you. You might be incredibly resilient yourselves, but if your team doesn't share that sense of resilience, it won't be reflected in the team, in the culture as a whole. Then the word resilience would just be a buzzword. So what's your approach to fostering resilience when it comes to building and managing your team?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Yeah, with this quite a challenging situation, what I did was mainly three things. The first one is I always shared our mission and vision with team members in terms of compensation. So we are not that great in comparison to Facebook, Google, Amazon, you name it, a global company. At the same time, we have to so as a leader, continue to motivate them to work for a startup. So like Tavist. So in order for us to do that, we have to give them another reason about why they continue to work for Tavist or continue to work for a startup. So one of the reason is mission and vision. So our mission is to provide technology for small and medium sized hotels and ryokans to flyke. That mission is quite fulfilling and quite engaged with our people. When our team members be the rule of cities and visit some of the local small hotels, they cannot integrate technology with their location. They see that kind of situation. In reality, if we can provide technology with them, they can thrive with less people. They also have a difficulty of hiring people because that being is facing the declining population. Right There is a huge issue of labor resources. They face the situation in real life. They embrace that an admission into their heart and blood. They are motivated to work for Tavist.

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[Vince Chen]

Motivation, the sense of mission, the sense of action, what else?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Secondly, the important thing is to provide a strategy, clear strategy. They also are quite smart. So we have to let them understand why we can win, why we can realize our mission. So what kind of things are quite different against competitors? So we have to find out true problems our clients face. And we have to be focused on that kind of problem. And then we have to provide a strategy, share strategy with stakeholders, of course, including employees.

[Vince Chen]

What you call the strategy, I would say is a pathway. You or the investors have the vision, you execute it, but the people around you, they follow you. So in order to follow you, yes, they have a reason that intrinsic motivation you've mentioned. But then you tell them, well, that's how we're going to do it. You call the astrology, I call it pathway. Then you engage stakeholders, the employees, of course. One of them investors, partners, customers, is a multi stakeholder development and management process. What's your third thing?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

And the third thing is leading. These are examples. One of the strategy is to acquire, of course, acquire many partners, partner hotels and real counselors. I quite often visit local cities to meet some of the potential clients. And then I myself grabbed several facilities through speaking to them why we are here and how we can help them thrive in the rural city. So then they gradually think, okay, Ryota did that. Why don't we do the same thing with this strategy? They could be convinced more. So mission, vision and Strategy and execution by leader are quite important for a startup to get their employees to be motivated.

[Vince Chen]

Yes, that is leadership by example. I would also like to see this as you getting closer to your customer. You really want to learn about the situation, the problem, problems and then you show to your staff how you win accounts, how you solve problems. If they're smart enough, they observe how you do it and then they follow. They take some of your best insights, the best lessons and then execute is also a kind of quality management so that you can train up your staff to deliver. Let's extend on this topic of leadership by example leader. One kind of leader which I admire is called servant leader. You lead by surfing. Another kind is you lead by coaching. So some of the best leaders I've worked for in my career life, they coach me on the side, made me become a better person, better leader. Now I know that outside of office work, you teach marketing social media strategy at one of the business schools in Japan. Share with me about your teaching experience as a faculty member.

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Yes, I'm teaching at Globalist University Marketing and Strategy. My customers of my students come from a variety Japanese and very established corporations. My career vision is to realize potential of people. Leading by example is quite important, but you cannot do everything. You have to create a great team. So training and nurturing them is also quite important. Not just at Globist but at Taoist. That's the reason why I teach not just as a Globist at University, but also at Tavist as well.

[Vince Chen]

Leaders are like coaches, right? They're always helping others to learn and grow. Speaking of which, are there any books or resources that really change the game for you? Maybe something you recommend to our listeners to help inspire them just as much as it did for you?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Yeah, yeah. Two books that I want to encourage people to read, especially business people to read. So first book is from Classic Books of Innovate. Innovate Glimmer written by Clay Lisdensen. The reason why I chose this book is because it is quite transformative for me because even the products are focused on small and medium sized customers can win over the great products or great companies with large corporations. So that is quite counterintuitive but that's happening. So that kind of concept still is distilled and the toughest strategy. I believe we are now focused on providing our technology to small and medium sized hotel and Ryokan. But eventually our products will permeate not just a small and medium sized company but also large corporations. So that kind of paradigm sheet has already started. The other book is the recent book, but I learned a lot because it is first time for me to build a company and run a startup at Tavist. But I learned a lot of things from this book. So Hike was Handbook written by Elad Gill is quite a famous investor in Silicon Valley, and he discussed with several entrepreneurs and executives about how to run a startup, how to operate a startup, how to build a corporation. So I learned a lot from this book. So especially one of the things that I exactly did based on this book was to write down the note about how to read Ryota. So I just write down everything about me and share that kind of note with my employees at Taoist so they can learn, okay, who is Ryota, what kind of strengths he has, what kind of weakness he has.

[Vince Chen]

I haven't actually read the book High Growth Handbook myself, but what you just said reminds me of something I do fairly often. I'm not big on texting or using social media because I prefer writing things down by hand. There's something about the process of writing. It involves a lot of thinking, reflecting and analyzing. By the time I've written something out, I've already worked through a lot of the information in my head. And I also find that even if I haven't figured out the problem, this process of writing as I'm doing it, the answer comes through more naturally. Speaking of which, remember in our Leadership Capital class taught by Linda Ginzel, the social psychologist at Chicago Booth, she talked about how our brains can trick us into rationalizing or justifying our thoughts too quickly. She suggested that to think clearly, we should write things down, not just to type it out. Actually write it down by hand in its rawest form. That way you can come back to it later, maybe a day or even a week later, and see exactly what you were thinking at that time. It really helps you work through your ideas and find solutions. Clayton Christensen yes, he's been my favorite author for the longest time. Sadly, he passed away around this start of COVID That book you mentioned, the Innovator's Dilemma, is absolutely incredible. But that's another one of his that I love, which is how will you measure your life? I highly recommend it to all my listeners, no matter what role you're in or what job you're doing. Anyways, thank you so much for your time today, Ryota. I'm really looking forward to our next conversation. I hope it won't be over a virtual setup next time. Instead, let's aim to be sitting next to each other, enjoying some beer and good food in Tokyo. Thanks again.

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Thank you, Liz. I quite enjoyed it. Thank you for having me. Foreign.

[Vince Chen]

Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show. Leave us top rated reviews. Check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.