#291 Ryota Tanozaki: Escape the Trap, Redesign the Map

Summary

Chief Change Officer Podcast - Episode #291: Ryota Tanozaki: Escape the Trap, Redesign the Map

Host: Vince Chan
Guest: Ryota Tanozaki, President and CEO of Tavist
Release Date: April 11, 2025

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1. Introduction and Background

Vince Chen opens the episode by sharing his deep-rooted connection to Japan, tracing back to his childhood trip to Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo at age nine. His academic journey includes an MBA from Yale and a significant study trip to Japan during his first year at Chicago Booth, where he explored Japan's business culture by visiting prominent companies like Shiseido, Toyota, NTT, Docomo, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Vince’s professional involvement with Actech Japan, an international conference on the future of education technology, further solidified his admiration for Japan's craftsmanship and the harmonious blend of tradition with modernization.

Notable Quote:

"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."
— Vince Chen [02:01]

2. Ryota Tanozaki's Career Journey

Ryota Tanozaki recounts his professional trajectory, beginning with his role at Tantori, a beer and waste manufacturer, where he focused on sales and marketing. Seeking to broaden his expertise, Ryota transitioned into management consulting, dedicating twelve years to honing his strategy-building and execution skills across various firms. This extensive consulting experience led him to pursue an Executive MBA in Singapore at Chicago Booth.

Post-MBA, Ryota took up a role managing the e-commerce business at Trans Cosmos, a subsidiary of Blackstone Technology Operations (BTO). His tenure there was brief—approximately ten months—before he was headhunted by Facebook Japan to serve as the Head of Client Solution Management. In this high-impact role, Ryota collaborated with the country manager to develop and execute strategic initiatives, effectively acting as the CEO of Facebook Japan.

In 2019, Ryota joined Tavist (originally part of a joint venture with SoftBank) as President and CEO. Under his leadership, Tavist navigated the tumultuous periods of the COVID-19 pandemic and the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, which severely impacted the travel industry.

Notable Quote:

"I want to hear my career and after that maybe you will ask and some of the details for transition timing."
— Ryota Tanozaki [05:12]

3. Challenges and Resilience

Vince delves into the concept of career transitions and the psychological impact of such changes at different life stages. Highlighting the immense volume of online content related to career changes, Vince posits that modern professionals should embrace and proactively manage their career evolutions. He frames Ryota's career shifts as a positive response to a "constructive insecurity," fueling growth and adaptability rather than being a reactionary "midlife crisis."

Notable Quote:

"Perseverance is quite important. ...you have to always consider people. Because unless people are engaged with strategy and motivated to execute strategy, company cannot move forward."
— Ryota Tanozaki [18:22]

Despite facing setbacks—such as the misalignment of his role at Trans Cosmos and the operational upheaval at Tavist due to external factors like the pandemic—Ryota emphasizes the importance of perseverance. He believes that enduring tough times is crucial for leaders aiming to build impactful companies and drive positive societal changes.

4. Leadership and Team Management

Ryota discusses his approach to fostering resilience and maintaining team motivation within Tavist. He outlines a three-pronged strategy:

1. Sharing Mission and Vision: Ryota ensures that the team is deeply connected to Tavist's mission of providing technology to small and medium-sized hotels and ryokans. This intrinsic motivation compensates for the company's inability to match the compensation packages of tech giants like Facebook or Google.

   Notable Quote:

   "Our mission is to provide technology for small and medium sized hotels to thrive. ... They embrace that mission into their heart and blood. They are motivated to work for Tavist."
   — Ryota Tanozaki [24:01]

2. Clear Strategy Communication: He emphasizes the importance of articulating a clear and focused strategy that differentiates Tavist from competitors. Understanding the true problems clients face allows the team to stay aligned and committed to the company's goals.

   Notable Quote:

   "We have to provide a strategy, share strategy with stakeholders ... why we can win, why we can realize our mission."
   — Ryota Tanozaki [26:15]

3. Leading by Example: Ryota champions leadership by example, often engaging directly with partners and clients to demonstrate the company's commitment and strategic approach. This hands-on leadership fosters trust and encourages the team to adopt and execute similar strategies.

   Notable Quote:

   "I quite often visit local cities to meet some of the potential clients ... they could be convinced more."
   — Ryota Tanozaki [27:36]

5. Teaching and Continuous Learning

Beyond his executive role, Ryota contributes to academia by teaching Marketing and Strategy at Globalist University. His students, hailing from established Japanese corporations, benefit from his real-world experience in strategic leadership and team building. Ryota believes in realizing the potential of people through both corporate leadership and educational endeavors.

Notable Quote:

"Leading by example is quite important. But you cannot do everything. You have to create a great team. So training, gating and nurturing them is also quite important."
— Ryota Tanozaki [29:53]

6. Books and Resources

Ryota shares two influential books that have shaped his professional philosophy:

1. "Innovate: Glimmer" by Clay Lisa: This book transformed Ryota's understanding of how small and medium-sized enterprises can compete with large corporations by focusing on innovative strategies. The concept of how smaller entities can disrupt established markets resonated with Tavist's mission.

   Notable Quote:

   "Even products focused on small and medium sized customers can win over the great products or great companies with large corporations. It is quite counterintuitive but that's happening."
   — Ryota Tanozaki [30:59]

2. "High Growth Handbook" by Elad Gil: A comprehensive guide on building and running startups, this handbook provided Ryota with actionable insights into corporate operations. Inspired by its teachings, Ryota developed a personal note detailing his strengths and weaknesses, which he shared with his team to foster transparency and self-awareness.

   Notable Quote:

   "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."
   — Ryota Tanozaki [33:27]

7. Conclusion

The episode concludes with Vince and Ryota reflecting on the importance of leadership, resilience, and continuous learning. Vince shares his admiration for authors like Clayton Christensen and emphasizes the value of reflective practices such as handwriting thoughts to enhance clarity and problem-solving.

Notable Quote:

"Leaders are like coaches, right? They're always helping others to learn and grow."
— Vince Chen [30:59]

Ryota expresses his appreciation for the conversation, hinting at future in-person meetings to further their discussions outside the virtual realm.

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Key Takeaways:

• Career Transformation: Embrace and proactively manage career changes as opportunities for growth rather than setbacks.

• Perseverance: Critical for overcoming challenges and driving a company towards success, especially during turbulent times.

• Leadership: Effective leaders foster resilience by clearly communicating mission and vision, strategizing meticulously, and leading by example.

• Continuous Learning: Engaging in teaching and staying informed through influential literature can significantly impact leadership and business strategies.

• Team Motivation: Intrinsic motivation, coupled with a clear strategic pathway, ensures team alignment and sustained commitment.

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This summary captures the essence of Episode #291, highlighting Ryota Tanozaki's insightful journey, leadership philosophy, and the strategies that have driven his success in navigating complex business landscapes.

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 his 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 phased some fascinating yet unexpected career transitions for those unfamiliar Tabist Originally part of a joint venture with SoftBank in 2019 with the headquarters in India, it was rebranded and localized as Tabist around 2022 with Ryota stepping up as the CEO. Tabi 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 Taboost 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 want to hear my career and after that maybe you will ask and some of the details for transition timing. Yeah. First after college and I joined Tantori, a beer and waste manufacturer sales and marketing especially after a five year journey at Santoruli, I decided to move toward management consulting firm 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 the Chicago booth. After coming back from Singapore to Japan, I got an opportunity to to manage e commerce business under BTO company called Trans Cosmos. 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 CEO 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 Oil Hotels and it's then that I changed the name from Oil Japan to Tabis. So I have been here for four years at Tardis. 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 BZG 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 next. But you kind of flipped the script a bit. You spent five years in one of the best 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 pursue MBA to get, I would say, some kind of extra edge. Now, before we jump into your experiences at Tavist, 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 the Frontier Management Inc. A Tandara consulting firm. Farm that project. I played a role of the 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 malls 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 that 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 strategy, company cannot move forward.

[Vince Chen]

I spent two years with you at 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, exactly 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 nebulize 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 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 corporation 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.

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Far 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 Transcord, 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. BigWear's transfer, of course, bought a variety of e commerce companies located in Southeast Asia. So they were struggling and then 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 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, that's a great question. Perseverance is quite important. At France Cosmos. What I expected was totally different. I pursued different journey just after 10 months work at Trans 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 ag. So 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 the society. I'm here right now.

[Vince Chen]

You use the word perseverance and often leaders like to use an out of buzz word, resilience. I totally get the concept as I've had to 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, It's a global company. At the same time, we have to, 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 reasons is mission and vision. So our mission is to provide technology for small and medium sized hotels to fly. That mission is quite fulfilling and quite engaged with our people. When our team members visit rural 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 Japan, Japan is facing the declining population. Right. There is a huge issue of labor resources. They paint the situation in real life. They embrace that animation into their heart and blood. They are motivated to work for Tavis.

[Unknown]

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[Vince Chen]

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[Ryota Tanosaki]

I can't sleep.

[Vince Chen]

What is it now? It's a company. It's chaos.

[Unknown]

What's chaos now?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

The numbers, the expenses, the books.

[Vince Chen]

What if we get audited?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

No one's gonna audit you at 3am Go to sleep. I can't sleep.

[Unknown]

You could if you used ramp.

[Vince Chen]

Who said that?

[Ryota Tanosaki]

I don't care because they're right. Go to sleep and sign up for.

[Vince Chen]

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[Unknown]

All your tedious financial operations, automatically integrates directly with your ERP and and gives you complete control over every transaction. Ramp gives you everything you need for bulletproof books and a better night's sleep.

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Wow.

[Vince Chen]

That is exactly what my company needs. Yes, and exactly what I also need.

[Ryota Tanosaki]

Go to sleep. Jerry.

[Unknown]

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[Vince Chen]

So that's about the intrinsic 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 as I think is leading. These are examples. One of the strategy is to acquire, of course acquire many partners, partner hotels and ryokans. I quite often visit local cities to meet some of the potential clients. And then I myself grabbed several facilities through teaching 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 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. It's 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, gating and nurturing them is also quite important. Not just at Globist but as a 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 changed 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 Lisa. 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 Gilch. He 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 have an 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 there'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, this 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 and I am. I quite enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.

[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.

[Unknown]

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[Vince Chen]

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[Unknown]

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