“I enjoy cross cultural management”, Clare Weaver told the Mainichi Shimbun on 7 February. London-based, she is a team leader of six Japanese and others in the Europe, Middle East and Africa team of Mitsui & Co.’s legal division.
Weaver, aged 36, is proud of heading a team whose members help each other even when having difficulty with communication. She conducts meetings and correspondence in Japanese, but says there is still a lot to learn.
Born in the UK, she started studying Japanese language and culture at age 18 for “the challenge”. Although she knew little about Japan, Weaver liked the culture and long history. She attended Hiroshima University and decided to become a lawyer while conducting research on the Japanese Constitution’s section about freedom of religion and the relationship between law and society.
When she was an M&A lawyer in London in 2005, an agency told her Mitsui was looking for a British, Japanese-speaking law specialist. Although not familiar with general trading firms, she decided to change her career to get experience in new fields such as energy. She is now in charge of training executives, essential for Mitsui’s globalisation. During training, she discusses Mitsui’s philosophy, shapes foreign employees’ careers to support the firm’s globalisation, and promotes the understanding of cultures.
