Konnichiwa from Tokyo!
I was expecting Tokyo to be worlds apart from London and
difficult to negotiate initially, given the scale of the city
amongst other things, but the evolution from seasoned Londoner to
wannabe Tokyo urbanite over the last three weeks has been pretty
smooth. I’d like to credit that to the many months of travelling
under my belt having made me instantly adaptable to anywhere I land
up, but in truth it has been largely down to the wonderful HR team
here who have made the transition seamless.
The working environment is noticeably different here compared to
London. Our Tokyo office is (understandably) much smaller than the
London office and everyone is more visible in the sense that we are
all on the same floor in our building, promoting more frequent
face-to-face contact with people from all departments. This has
certainly helped me to get to know more people quickly, and
everyone has been very welcoming from the start – the famous
Japanese hospitality has been in constant flow! More broadly, I’ve
noticed that people tend to start and finish work later: the 9-to-5
working model doesn’t hold true here, and you’re more likely to get
caught in the rush hour at 7.30pm than at 5.30pm.
From a personal perspective, my initiation into Tokyo working
life has been gradual and varied. Amongst other things, I have been
involved in drafting a shareholders agreement which will govern the
relationship between parties on an oil and gas-related project
financing and presenting some urgent legal advice to a bank client
on whether they themselves were at risk of defaulting on a loan
agreement under which they had borrowed money. I have also been
heavily involved on the marketing side in organising a presentation
which some of the Tokyo partners will be delivering to a delegation
of senior bankers and assisting in preparing a pitch which will be
delivered to a potential client to secure a role on a large
cross-border transaction.
As the sole trainee in the Banking team here, I have relished
being given a lot of responsibility in a variety of matters –
perhaps it really is the spice of life!