My Personal History, Kagayaki Miyazaki24. Twenty-Two Years as Company President

At last, this is the final chapter. I could have written a lot more, but I’m sorry to say there’s only so much space. Looking back on my 22 years as president, it strikes me how transient one person’s efforts are. I devoted myself to expanding the business, but what was the result? We went from one plant in Nobeoka to 14 plants all around Japan, and our sales grew from a little over 40 billion yen to about 700 billion yen for Asahi Kasei alone and nearly 1 trillion yen for the Asahi Kasei Group. That’s all.
During my first 10 years as president, I worked desperately to make our lagging businesses catch up. Those 10 years laid the foundation for today. But due to the aftereffects of the oil shock, I’ve been doing nothing but repair work ever since, such as reducing personnel and rationalizing. While I did lay the groundwork for new growth, I feel like I could have done a lot more if it weren’t for the oil shock.
I hope this doesn’t sound like grumbling. Some companies achieve healthy business expansion even in a low-growth environment. I just wasn’t able to. Since I didn’t achieve much to speak of during my tenure, I hope to pass the baton to someone who can work even harder to realize the dream that I couldn’t. Now my task is to put the company in the best condition as possible to pass to my successor.
Twenty-two years sounds like a long time, but it seems like a fleeting dream now. Looking back, I feel like I just left university. It’s amazing how the time has flown. I guess I was able to continue the exhausting work of being president for so long because of my good health and vitality, as well as my attachment to the company and sense of responsibility.
Although I worked energetically since I entered the world of industry, recently I’ve wondered if that was a good thing. A company president is evaluated by the financial results every period. I worked from morning to night trying to improve earnings. I never felt that work itself is a chore, but it’s hard to say if I was ever really a happy person when I always had to worry about the figures.
There was a time when I considered following a religious path, but would that have allowed me to live a more fulfilling life? Maybe if I worked hard I could have become the head of a famous temple. There’s no way to know. It’s too late to go back and lead a different life now.
The livelihoods of 300,000 people are sustained by with Asahi Kasei. Along with my own family, they depend on me. I want them to lead even richer lives, and if possible, I want it to increase to 1 million people. If there are 100 corporate groups each sustaining 1 million people in Japan, generating healthy profits and paying their taxes, then 100 million people can lead happy lives.
My deepest desire is to at least achieve a milestone toward building such a group. I think I’ve only recently begun to understand what management really means. I feel as if I can take on even bigger projects and keep going.
In closing, I would like to mention one last thing. I couldn’t have accomplished anything without the support of my wonderful wife. For someone like me, who just thinks about work all day long, there is nothing so precious as my wife’s understanding. It’s as if our home belongs to her and I’m merely a tenant. I want to do all I can so she will be comfortable once I’m gone.
Today is the last day of the year. It was an eventful and fulfilling year. I hope the coming year will be an excellent one.