SavvySpotlight
Mariko Nishimura wears many hats: programmer, marketer, media creator, businesswoman and entrepreneur. She makes them all look good, combining a high-energy, outgoing personality with a deep-seated curiosity about the world. After coming up through corporate giants like IBM and Adobe, Mariko Nishimura has been running a two-person creative consulting firm Heart Catch for nearly a decade, looping in willing players from her vast network to dream big and realize large-scale projects. Her newest venture is the startup Naro, which produces on-demand streaming courses about Japanese culture. They’v...
Savvy Tokyo
Writer and educator Melissa Uchiyama discusses her organization Tokyo Kids Write and the power of writing she wishes to inspire future creatives with. American writer and Tokyo resident Melissa Uchiyama realized the importance of encouragement from an early age. As a child growing up in Arizona and Florida, Uchiyama loved music, lyrics, nature, dance and art. By fifth grade, however, she knew that she was a “word person” and decided that she would be a writer. When she typed up her first poem and showed it to her teacher, however, Uchiyama’s poem was thrust back at her, full of red markings an...
Savvy Tokyo
A desire to help safeguard the future of Japan’s traditional industries is driving Kyoko Nagano forward. Since 2018, Nagano has been running three companies, each centered around an aspect of Japanese culture. She founded Mypal, a Japanese culture experience provider offering classes in tea ceremony, kimono wearing, bonsai and various traditional crafts. In the same year, she co-founded Sake Lovers, which aims to spread its love of nihonshu (Japanese rice wine) with the world while supporting small breweries in Japan. And, finally, she is a director of Hakko Farm, a promoter of fermented (hakk...
Savvy Tokyo
We’re hearing more about “neurodiversity” these days. The term describes the idea that people experience the world around them in a multitude of ways, and there is no “right” way of thinking or behaving. It also refers to the diversity of people themselves, and is often used in relation with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurological conditions such as ADHD. A self-professed “forever student” with a life-long love of learning, educational consultant Kate Kamoshita of Learning Compass has turned a passion into a business by helping others find the right program for their goals and ne...
Savvy Tokyo
A dedication to tradition melds business, community and nature into a tasty spirit. In Nichinan, Miyazaki, on a little spit of land pinched between the Hosoda River and the Pacific Ocean, stands historic Furusawa Distillery. They make honkaku or “genuine” shochu, which must be single-distilled to retain the flavors of the raw materials. The current owner and toji (master brewer-distiller) is Masako Furusawa, the fifth generation in her family to head the business. She has been immersed in the world of shochu literally since birth since the family home abuts the distillery’s traditional mud-wal...
Savvy Tokyo
Serbian psychologist and hypnotherapist Dr. Mira Simic-Yamashita is tackling mental health issues while encouraging greater psycho-related education in Japan. A therapist and university lecturer specializing in anxiety, low self-esteem, migraine and chronic pain, Dr. Mira Simic-Yamashita practices clinical hypnotherapy and rapid transformational therapy (RTT), an innovative combination of hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, neuro-linguistic programming and cognitive-behavioral therapy. After 18 years living in Japan, she has seen firsthand how the mental health field has improved in recent years, wit...
Savvy Tokyo
Erika Sawauchi, a freelance sports photographer, discusses her backstage involvement in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Born and raised in the Occitanie region of southwest France near a small town called Figeac by her Japanese mother and British/French father, Erika Sawauchi moved to the U.K. to attend Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent to acquire a Bachelor of Arts degree in photojournalism. She now lives in Shizuoka Prefecture and works as a freelance sports photographer, currently specializing in badminton photography. Sawauchi has been working for the photo agency Badmintonphoto sin...
Savvy Tokyo
For Sarah Bull, people are at the heart and soul of any business, and engaging with them effectively and empathically is her secret to success. The Saitama-based Australian is chief relationship officer (and director of legal services) at Translation Business Systems Japan (TBSJ), a role that encompasses the management and care of the company’s internal and external relationships. With team members in all major time zones and a growing client portfolio, she has key responsibilities and says that empowering people to shine while fostering ties with clients, collaborators and the wider business ...
Savvy Tokyo
Hitomi Nomura was a Tokyo-based office worker until a dream vacation lit a passion within her for Scotland. Of particular interest was tartan, the patterned cloth of crisscrossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colors most associated with the kilt. When opportunity knocked, Hitomi Nomura embarked on a two-year journey to become skilled in the traditional art of kilt-making, in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, before returning to her native Gifu to launch her business, Handmadekilts.com. Today, she is a handmade kilt and tartan skirt maker, driven by a desire to bring a piece of Sco...
Savvy Tokyo
Melbourne-born business graduate and sustainable fashion advocate Lia Yew found an unexpected resource for her budding clothing label when she arrived in Japan: kimono. Despite her general disinterest in Japanese clothing, which she found too “girly,” Lia Yew saw the potential of using the colorful patterns in Japan’s national dress to make one-of-a-kind outfits for ladies. With the gem of an idea and a passion to create slow fashion that leaves a limited impact on the environment, Tokyo Kaleidoscope was born. As Lia marks 10 years since her dream began, Savvy Tokyocaught up with her to find o...
Savvy Tokyo
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