The second person I interviewed was a person who had graduated from my high school network, United World Colleges (UWC), was from Japan and after studying university abroad in the UK decided to go back to work in his home country, Japan. He also works for the big four (Deloitte, PwC,  Ernst& Young and KPMG) but on a different firm and role as the person form my first interview. He works in the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) department, which is very in tune to what I was doing in my internship at JOIN. He was very nice and we went to eat Mexican food (in Tokyo wow, but it was really good).

Part of our dinner, Enchiladas con Mole

I started by asking him about his life. He studied at the UWC in Canada (I studied in the one in Armenia) and then went to the UK for university and studied urban planning. He loves thinking about how to make cities and got interested in public-private partnerships since it is a very popular way to finance infrastructure and city planning. He told me that when he was looking for a job, in Japan you usually apply for an entry-level position and then they assign you to a department according to your skills and (hopefully) interests, but many times it is not guaranteed that you will get into the department you want. He told me that since he was going into an accounting and auditing firm as an urban planner, he planned to quit if he didn’t get into the PPP department. He did get into his chosen department and has been working with the firm for about 3 years now. He would not recommend though betting everything on the fact that you will get the department that you want because that might not be the case.

His work is to serve as a liaison between the public sector and the private sector, which sounds a lot like what my internship firm JOIN is doing. He has gotten to work and see much of how the government in Japan works, as well as foreign governments. I think it is a fascinating job, but it comes with the downside (to some) of working really late at night, which is also a part of Japanese working culture. Working at a project until 3 am in the office, who doesn’t love that? He told me he found the job really rewarding and that he enjoyed his work there, but that he felt like he wasn’t able to be as creative as he wanted. It is a lot of doing stuff but not a lot of creating stuff if it makes sense. As a finance firm, you are supposed to give numbers and forecasts to your client, and that did not allow for much creativity. He is looking to go back to Europe to get a Masters Degree sometime soon.

I really enjoyed this meeting since it allowed me to see how working in PPP, something I am very interested in, would look like. I am very excited for my future networking meetings!