39: Andrew Hankinson, President, Zwilling J.A. Henckels Japan

<p>Andrew Hankinson is the President of Zwilling J.A. Henckels Japan and host of the podcast Now and Zen. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Mr. Hankinson’s passion for Japan grew at a young age, having been exposed to Japanese culture by family members living in the country, leading him to learn the language from high school. After briefly teaching English in Osaka, Mr. Hankinson returned to Japan with a degree in international business and Japanese language from the US. He shortly began working at a Japanese department store as a menswear buyer which he describes as an “eye-opening” experience and a “great foundation to be living and working in Japan.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Mr. Hankinson’s next move was in the travel industry, where he worked for a travel publishing company as a salesperson. He explains the company to be “very flexible and very open” as they originally hired Mr. Hankinson in hopes of increasing innovation. Mr. Hankinson was quickly able to gain the trust of the organization due to achieving success early on where his suggestions led to better results for the organization. Mr. Hankinson’s first official leadership role was working as country manager for a European-based office product company where he managed seven employees. He describes his work there as hands-on, especially with client facing aspects of the organization.</p> <p> </p> <p>Currently, as head of a much larger organization, Mr. Hankinson leads about 250 employees. Mr. Hankinson says jumping into an organization that he had no previous knowledge of required lots of catching up, and building trust with the people had its challenges. To overcome this, Mr. Hankinson interviewed his staff in the Tokyo office to build rapport and connect with them at a more individual basis. In order to lead a much larger team, Mr. Hankinson is mindful of the Japanese way of thinking through group consensus. He explains: “if we do it all together…[and] if it fails, nobody’s responsible.” He is also conscious of fostering empowerment amongst his employees to