A rugby team manager’s conversion to MBA student

I graduated from Tokyo’s Waseda College in the late 1990s as a politics important and was looking for a job when I saw that the Japanese rugby union was selecting an accounting assistant.

That was my way into the planet of rugby and, as I preferred to use my English, I finished up encouraging with the women’s worldwide video games in Japan as properly as negotiations with other unions when our staff travelled overseas. The occupation suited me and, in 2010, I was appointed as workforce manager for the Japanese women’s rugby sevens.

I experienced never ever played rugby — I just loved to watch it. My father was a large enthusiast and would choose me to games when I was young. My most unforgettable match was the final of the Japanese countrywide match in January 1984 when I was 10. We did not have tickets, but I managed to obtain some for all the relatives from relations at the gate, making use of up the funds from my New Year’s reward.

My proudest second was in 2016, when the Olympic Online games included rugby sevens for the initial time, and we went to Rio de Janeiro.

In the beginning, the women’s group only experienced about 5 training camps a thirty day period, but we produced the set-up and, in modern several years, we have expended an normal of 270 days a year as a team training and collaborating in worldwide tournaments. We have qualified so tricky — when I begun, our workforce was ranked fifth in Asia, but now we are the champions of the area.

I experimented with hard over the decades to give my total support to gamers and employees both of those on and off the pitch and, most importantly, I designed guaranteed to hold the team disciplined.

Final yr, I determined to reinvent myself. In 2015, Eire had hosted the qualification match for the Entire world Rugby Sevens women’s series at the Belfield Bowl, the College Faculty Dublin stadium. I heard that UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business enterprise College was on the lookout for women of all ages from Asia to sign up for its entire-time MBA programme, so I determined to apply.

More than the a long time, many gamers have appear to me for information on how to cope. I have uncovered I have a all-natural skill to inspire

I have two objectives. The very first is to acquire a lifetime-very long profession as an government mentor at some point in the future. Qualified rugby gamers experience a good deal of strain and, over the many years, numerous have arrive to me for guidance on how to cope. I have uncovered I have a purely natural capacity to encourage.

My second goal is to promote women’s rugby in Japan and for that I require business understanding these kinds of as marketing. I appreciate the activity because of its core values: integrity, solidarity, self-control and respect.

My MBA study course began in September and will run right up until August. There are 34 entire-time learners from nations these types of as India, the US and Lebanon, so it is a fairly global environment. Most pupils are in their late twenties and have joined the course immediately after roughly five a long time in a work. I think I am the oldest person on the class at 47, nevertheless I really don’t experience that aged. I nevertheless have the similar passion to learn new things as the younger learners — age does not matter when you are learning.

I have appreciated the course on leadership and organisational behaviour — it is all about how to control a team and grow to be a improved leader. I learnt a large amount from that. Previous yr, all courses were on line for the reason that of the pandemic but, this calendar year, we have so significantly fortunately experienced all lessons in human being.

Eire has a lot of multicultural organizations, this kind of as Google, and it is crucial to understand how to perform with each other with numerous nationalities. I have learnt how to converse and strategy actions in a firm in a smoother method.

I have enjoyed living in Ireland. Anyone I have achieved below has been so supportive and constantly asks if I am executing good. I truly really feel at property, even though I sometimes miss the solar. But at minimum my Indian flatmates entertain me and keep me pleased.

With Covid, it has not been straightforward to explore Eire, but I am hoping to stop by the countryside by the finish of the programme.

I strategy to devote an additional few of several years with the Japanese rugby union — it funded my MBA and I also truly want to assistance build women’s rugby in Japan.