Managing Counsel with four ARCO divisions.  She also worked in Chicago, Illinois for Baker & McKenzie and began her career with Stinson, Mag & Fizzell in Kansas City, Missouri.  Ms. Adam received both her JD and BA in Political Science from the University of Missouri-Colombia, where she was also a member of Order of the Coif.

(KJ): How do you manage your responsibilities globally?

(JA): Globally, I formed a team of worldwide tax and finance leaders from the Nissan affiliates. We meet quarterly to discuss tax planning strategy, pending tax projects and implementation issues. We also discuss the need to shift focus from tax compliance to tax planning and recruiting and retention of tax personnel. We are starting to staff global projects from the tax departments of several affiliates.

(KJ): Have language and cultural barriers been an issue in conducting business in Japan?

(JA): Language has been a much bigger problem than I had anticipated. I used to spend a lot of time searching for the perfectly nuanced phrase. Now, I realize I should have concentrated on short messages with simple words. A lot of disagreement occurs that is really due to a misunderstanding of what is being said.

As far as cultural barriers, I think it is a beneficial experience to live somewhere as a minority. It gives you an entirely new perspective and can make you more reflective about your home country’s attitude toward and treatment of minorities.

(KJ): You are one of the very few women in tax who has moved from the US to Japan to lead the tax function. What has this experience been like for you?

(JA): I love Tokyo and have some personal freedoms here as a woman that are almost impossible to find in the US. I can take public transportation very late at night, walk home from the train station and not have any concerns about personal safety.

I also realize that the US employment laws have helped open up a lot of career possibilities to US women that are not yet available to many Japanese women. I am very grateful to the women who blazed the trail in US law firms and companies and I hope to give a few Japanese women a fair opportunity to succeed. So far, I have hired two female Japanese tax professionals in Tokyo - one as a senior staff member and one as a senior manager.

(KJ): You have had the responsibility to take lead roles in US and Japanese companies. What advice would you give anyone considering working for a Japanese company?

(JA): I would pay attention to reporting relationships and to the decision making authority. For employees of the non-Japanese affiliates, are there Japanese “shadow managers” who communicate back to Japan and help Japanese executives influence all the significant decisions? Or are the foreign affiliate employees truly empowered to run the affiliate’s business and are they also accountable for the affiliate’s results? Do non-Japanese employees hold some key global positions (an indication that you can have upward mobility in the organization outside of the local affiliate)?

There is also some tension between Japanese consensual decision making and the desire of many Japanese companies to have quick western-style results. It is not easy to comply with traditional means of reaching consensus and to be flexible and speedy. To avoid the compromise decision that does not really achieve the desired result, it is good to know if you have a way to escalate an issue and force a decision between competing alternatives.

(KJ): What impact has SOX Compliance had on a company headquartered out of Japan?

(JA): Nissan is not an SEC registrant and its ADRs are listed on the NASDAQ, so our obligations under SOX have been limited to date. However, there will be Japanese legislation to address some recent corporate scandals in Japan and that will have an impact. It will be interesting to see if more Japanese companies are forced to increase the number of independent directors and have an audit committee - things that are not typical at the present time.

(KJ): What advice would you give someone who wants to work in Japan?

(JA): When interviewing for a job, try and get as much clarity as possible about what the company wants you to accomplish, and the resources you will have. The ability to hire staff and make personnel changes is very important. Many Japanese companies still consider lifetime employment an obligation. Like any corporate job in the US, the support of influential executives is key.

Japan is a great place to live, so you’ll need to make the time to enjoy it. I’ve found it possible to avoid the extremely late evenings typical in many Japanese companies, although I do put in a long day. My husband and I have Philharmonic tickets and this weekend we visited a wonderful art exhibit at a museum within walking distance of our apartment. The food is wonderful, the people are very friendly and helpful and it is clean and safe. I would encourage people to give Japan a try!

(KJ) : What is the advantage of working in the US and Japan for the same company?

(JA): I think that spending time at both headquarters (HQ) and a subsidiary (sub) is very helpful. It’s much easier to see the reason that HQ asks certain questions, and it’s also possible to see why the sub resents the work required to answer those questions. As a result, I think you can explain more fully why you are making requests of the sub and you can also try and help keep the requests from HQ to a reasonably necessary level. A lot of what I do is to try and resolve conflict among various affiliates and HQ. Often, that just requires understanding the motivation of the parties and the competing demands on their time.

(KJ): Jane, thank you for the time you have taken to answer our questions. Your global tax and trade perspective is very valuable and we appreciate the time you have taken to share your experiences with us.

Kathleen Jennings (KJ)
Editor, The Tax Intelligence Report
Kathleen@etsearch.com

Jane Adam (JA)
General Manager, Global Tax & Trade
j-adam@mail.nissan.co.jp