Yoshikane Takahashi Head ofFinance Control in Tokyo MY WORLD The viewfrom Yoshikane Takahashi's 16th floor Tokyo office is spectacular - a skyline panorama of the business end of a city that's home to 13 million people. Naturally, your eye is drawn to the Sky Tree tower, the tallest man-made structure in Japan, at 634m. Takahashi-san has a particular memory of its construction, but more of that in a moment. Takahashi-san has lived and worked in Tokyo all his life. "It provides everything you need - employement, food, relaxation, everything," he says. "Tokyo cannot easily be described in one phrase, but rather shows different characters. And the pace of life in Tokyo is fast. People who live in Tokyo walk faster - a characteristic they share with New Yorkers. Tokyo is similar to New York and other big cities in the world in many ways." You sense he's proud of his home city, so what does he feel when he surveys it from his office? "Sometimes the view through the window encourages me," he says. "Sometimes it makes me scared - that was the case when I experienced the earthquake. I saw a lot of buildings shaking. I also saw all the traffic had stopped. Tm only lOOm from the central station so I saw all the trains had stopped, too. Through the night, I saw very big fires from fuel tanks that had exploded. That continued for two or three hours, a brightorange colour. I started to worryabout the future of Tokyo and our country, quite honestly." That was a Friday. The following Monday, his window showed a different scene. "Constructors were working on the Sky Tree as normal. I saw the taxis running again. I was encouraged to see so much ordinary activity. And I realised Tokyo would survive." Takahashi-san and his colleagues formed a crisis management team and had a daily teleconference with their regional office in Hong Kong. Special messages of support were received from board members in Utrecht. "We feit we were not alone. We received encouragement from all corners of the Rabobank network." Within three weeks, their business operations were back to normal. Tokyo found its feet again quickly, too. "I think the Japanese people were reasonably calm. Everybody respected each other and every body tried to help each other." Much like the 'Rabo way', in other words. R] WORLD

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'RI World' (EN) | 2011 | | pagina 4