I don't take generic advisory work. I step in when one of these four things is happening — and execution has stopped.
The deal closed. The integration plan exists. On paper, the first 100 days were mapped out. But the Japan subsidiary has stopped moving. Integration is drifting. KPIs are slipping. Mid-managers are hedging. HQ starts asking uncomfortable questions in every quarterly review.
"The plan doesn't execute itself. Someone has to hold the line in the room — in Japanese, in English, in pain if needed."
What I do in the first 30 days: on-the-floor diagnosis, HQ realignment on what is actually broken versus what looks broken, prioritization of 3–5 KPIs that will restore HQ confidence, and personal operational ownership of at least one critical workstream.
Your Japan GM just left — resignation, termination, compliance event, or personal crisis. The permanent hire will take 3–6 months if you move fast. Internal promotion is not ready. In the meantime, every vendor, every customer, every regulator, and every employee is asking: who is running Japan now?
"The answer cannot be ‘we're searching.’ It has to be ‘someone is already in the seat.’"
What I do in the first 30 days: take the formal operating seat (under a governance model we agree on in advance), stabilize team morale, protect the customer relationships that were most tied to the previous GM, and set up a clean handover frame for the permanent successor.
HQ sees one picture. Japan delivers another. Messages get lost — not linguistically, but culturally and operationally. The Japan team nods in English meetings, then executes differently. HQ escalates. Trust breaks down. Both sides are, in fact, trying.
"This is not a translation problem. It's an alignment problem. And it is solvable, but only by someone who sits on both sides of the table."
What I do in the first 30 days: direct diagnostic conversations with both HQ leadership and the local team in their native language, mapping of the actual decision rights (versus the assumed ones), and a written 90-day realignment plan with accountability per side.
A critical function has broken. Customer service is drowning. A quality event has surfaced. An operations team is losing people faster than it can hire. The metrics are visible. The cause is contested. Every day it continues costs money and trust.
"You don't need another consultant to tell you what's wrong. You need someone who will walk into the room and fix it this week."
What I do in the first 30 days: enter the floor (literally — the contact center, the warehouse, the clinic, wherever it is), ship short-horizon improvement steps within the first two weeks, and establish a KPI loop that proves the recovery is real within 60 days.
The first Initial Consultation is complimentary and takes 30 minutes, held under confidentiality. I'll tell you honestly whether I think I can help, or whether you need something else.