Tokyo (SCCIJ) – The 41st Annual General Meeting of the SCCIJ membership has elected five new board members. The SCCIJ introduces them here through brief interviews, beginning with the two new Kansai representatives Ms. Yuko Sakai (Executive Officer, Deputy Head of Marketing at Nestlé Japan) and Mr. Dieter Sommerhalder (Executive Director, UBS Group Japan).
Ms. Yuko Sakai, Executive Officer & Deputy Head of Marketing at Nestlé Japan (© Y. Sakai) and Mr. Dieter Sommerhalder, Executive Director at UBS Japan (© D. Sommerhalder).
SCCIJ: Please introduce yourself briefly.
Ms. Yuko Sakai: I am happy to be a member of the chamber, as a Japanese who has so many connections to Switzerland in my life, starting from living with my family at the age of twelve, for three years in Geneva. I have worked at Dentsu for over 30 years, of which 19 years were with Nestlé. I studied at IMD-Lausanne during that time and finally joined Nestlé in October 2022. My brother-in-law is Swiss and always brings back Swiss wines, cheese, etc.
Mr. Dieter Sommerhalder: Born and raised in Switzerland, I started working in Tokyo in 1993, after job assignments in Zurich, Singapore, and New York. Most of my career I spent in banking, but I had the chance to head a Trading/Import company, headquartered in Osaka for eight years, the reason for moving to Kansai in 1997. In 2005, I joined the newly opened UBS Wealth Management Office in Osaka as Executive Director and additionally served as Honorary Consul-General of Switzerland for Western Japan from 2008 to 2021. My wife is a Japanese citizen – we are living in Ashiya-City, located between Kobe and Osaka.
SCCIJ: Why did you decide to work for the chamber as a member of the executive committee?
Y. Sakai: I wanted to be a part of the Swiss Community to be able to contribute to enhancing the relationship between Japan and Switzerland, countries where I feel at home.
D. Sommerhalder: Working for a Swiss company and generally being interested in connecting Switzerland and Japan, I became a Board Member in 2006 and already served two terms as Vice-President Kansai, i.e. from 2007 to 2010 and 2014 to 2017. This time, my motivation to run again, is the upcoming World Expo 2025, an excellent opportunity for the SCCIJ Kansai Chapter in collaboration with the new Swiss Consulate/SWISSNEX Office in Osaka to build up new relations between Swiss- and local companies and bring Switzerland closer to the Kansai.
SCCIJ: What does the chamber mean for you, and your organization?
Y. Sakai: It is an organization that allows me to have access to Swiss and global information and to have Nestlé be in contact with the Swiss community.
D. Sommerhalder: I strongly believe that the chamber’s prime role is to act as a “facilitator” for business relations between Switzerland and Japan and be a complementary “point of contact” for any Swiss-related business, next to the Swiss government organizations, like Swiss Business Hub, etc.
SCCIJ: What other services should the chamber offer?
Y. Sakai: I need to learn more about the chamber before I ask for anything, which means participating in events that are already being planned.
D. Sommerhalder: Cooperation with other “like-minded” chambers, e.g. joint-chamber speaker events, etc., could bring synergies and open-up new interesting relations for our members. Building-up contacts with innovative Japanese companies (non-members) could be an attractive tool to connect to interesting counterparts in Switzerland in cooperation with our sister organization in Switzerland.
