Akiko Kosuda was born and raised in Setagaya, Tokyo, surrounded by vegetable patches and woods; snakes and weasels randomly appeared on the road to school.

“I was a bright and serious student, and thanks to my parents my grades were among the highest,” she recalls. “In junior high, I got interested in social activities and organized a volunteer group to visit orphanages and welfare facilities.”

She was also interested in international affairs, and applied for the Mainichi’s nationwide Children’s Ambassador Program. Her lack of English proficiency saw her fail the final exam to become one of three junior high ambassadors going to Manila. “That frustration motivated me to refine my English-language skills,” she says, “and I later chose to study in the UK.”

But first, another plot twist. Just before she left for England, a fateful encounter with a famous director led Kosuda to become a stage actress. “I joined a major theatre company. After a few years, though, I was no longer confident that I could make it big, so I took the easy way out by working for a foreign company where I could use my English skills.”

The Quintessential Career Woman

At twenty-two, Kosuda started working in customer service for British Airways in Japan, earning one of two vacant positions that 463 people were vying for. She underwent three months of intensive training in Japan that covered everything from IATA terms and conditions to aircraft structures and models to ticket prices and agency commissions.

“I got used to the job and was enjoying my youth, going to Hawaii, Hong Kong and London on vacation,” Kosuda recalls. “When Japan became the most profitable station after the U.S., the head office installed a new president. He asked me to move to the sales department, but the travel and airline industry then was a male-dominated society, so I refused at first.”　

But adding a woman to the team would create a sense of urgency, her boss insisted. “He awakened my dormant fighting spirit and desire to take on new challenges, and it became a turning point in my life.”

In her sales department manager role—the first female at that level in the airline industry—Kosuda battled with travel agencies who resisted the entry of women into the business. She was also saddled with an uncooperative boss.

Mark McCormack, the founder of well-known sports management company IMG, helped her overcome her predicament. His advice: “Manage your manager.” She succeeded at that, and later became BA Japan’s first head of corporate sales.

In 1992, Kosuda switched roles to become the human resources director of BA Japan. Leaving BA in 1999, she took on a similar role at CIGNA-Sompo Japan Securities for two years before becoming the VP of human resources at Prudential Corporation Asia, Japan. “The market for HR professionals who can speak English is always at a premium across industries,” Kosuda explains. “My success in HR increased my value in the job market and made it possible for me to move to other companies. I began to receive frequent job offers from headhunters in Europe and the U.S.”

In 2005, Kosuda joined McDonald’s Japan as its HR director, overseeing a nationwide workforce of 160,000 part-time workers and 5,000 full-time employees. Returning from a long business trip to Europe, she found a letter from Rengo, Japan’s top labour union, notifying McDonald’s of the formation of a labour union, a demand for collective bargaining, and thirty items to be demanded in the Spring Struggle. The deadline for responding to the offer of cross-bargaining? The next day.

“I was also busy responding to the media, including NHK’s Close-Up Today,” she remembers. “Every day was like being in the middle of a storm.” A Supreme Court case regarding overtime work at McDonald’s became famous, and was included in labour law textbooks.

Kosuda survived that, and somehow found the time and energy to become a certified executive coach along the way, a path that led her to serve as an executive VP at DHR International, an executive search firm based in Chicago. She later became an advisor to Coach A Co., Ltd., an executive coaching firm with a global network.

Chamber Sparkplug

Kosuda met Wilf Wakely at a farewell party for her former British Airways boss in October 2013 at the Canadian ambassador’s residence. “The next day, Wilf asked me to become an HBA member, but the glamorous careers of the senior honorary advisors intimidated me and I declined,” she recalls.

Wilf proved persuasive, however, saying that her experience and achievements in promoting the India-Japan Global Partnership would apply to the Canada-Japan partnership.

Kosuda served as Wilf’s de facto personal assistant, attending various events and learning about the Chamber’s activities, often meeting with Wilf and current Chair Marc Bolduc to discuss Chamber challenges and its roadmap for the future. She was also put in charge of recruiting a new executive director, who turned out to be Andrew Lambert.

Since that time, she’s been instrumental in several major Chamber programs and initiatives. While a senior advisor to the Japan PFI (P3) Association, for example, she organised a May 2014 seminar to encourage the government and private sector to build public-private partnerships, inviting experts from Canada’s government and private sector to speak on Canada’s partnership model. Two hundred top executives from local governments and major corporations from across Japan attended.

Sensitized through her own career to face down sexism and promote women in business and overall diversity, Kosuda helped launch the Womenomics Roundtable in 2015. That first session’s theme centered on how to deal with male bosses and subordinates. She did the same for the Gender Diversity Roundtable in January 2016 to discuss career development, another in April 2016 to discuss organizational climate reform, and a third in July 2016. That led to the formation of the Chamber’s Diversity Committee in 2019.

“In March 2022, a visit to Japan’s largest decarbonization expo at Tokyo Big Sight ignited my life’s passion for global environmental conservation,” she says. “Canada can serve as a role model for Japan’s decarbonization efforts, and Japan is a major market for Canadian decarbonization technologies and products.”

 The Chamber’s first Net Zero Forum took place in March this year, dealing with mobility and infrastructure, thanks in large part to Kosuda. Expect more to come.

Last Great Task

Kosuda currently serves as an outside director to Meiho Facility Works, Ltd., a respected construction management services firm, and also works for Edmonton International Airport as an advisor, hoping to open a new air route between Edmonton and Japan.

Among all her advisory roles, though, Kosuda is especially intent on one venture designed to protect people against the fiery outcomes of natural disasters.

“During the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 2005, a fire broke out that could not be stopped,” she explains. “Firefighting on land did not work because of earthquake roadblocks, water outages at fire hydrants, and other problems.”

A decade ago, she and Wilf Wakely had proposed introducing a firefighting aircraft to Japan manufactured by Bombardier in Canada. Unfortunately, they were unable to overcome issues such as aircraft parking locations, maintenance costs, and equipment safety.

In January 2024, an earthquake-sparked fire destroyed the famous morning market in Wajima City, Ishikawa Prefecture. “I was devastated that we could have stopped the fire from spreading if we had introduced an aerial fireboat to Japan in 2013,” Kosuda says.

Now she’s appealing to Canada’s De Havilland and the Japanese government and other organisations to bring in the former’s DHC-515 Firefighter amphibious firefighting aircraft, which has a water tank capacity of 7,000 liters, and can refill in just twelve seconds and deliver up to 700,000 litres in a day.

“My dream is to prevent future tragedies,” she says. “The DHC-515 will also help prevent wildfires and other major accidents caused by fires at nuclear power plants and oil complexes. It may take about three years to realize my dream, so I’ll report back to you then.”