47: Wolfgang Angyal, President & CEO, RSN (Riedel) Japan Co. Ltd.

<p>Wolfgang Angyal, President of Riedel Japan, originally grew up in Austria and came to Japan in 1985 as an Austrian representative in restaurant service sector of the 28th WorldSkills Competition and won first place. He credits this win to the trust he had of his supporting team who were all Japanese. Mr. Angyal has also been practicing Judo from a young age where he developed a deep respect and fascination for Japanese culture.</p> <p> </p> <p>After working in the education sector as an instructor in Japan, Mr. Angyal became interested in working for Riedel as he was familiar with the brand due to his experience in the hospitality industry in Austria. Through persistency, Mr. Angyal met with Georg Riedel, the owner of Riedel, and secured a business development role for a subsidiary company. There, he was able to apply the skills he had gained working in hospitality and event management to promote Riedel products to Japanese restaurants and companies.  </p> <p> </p> <p>Staying true to the Riedel family motto of “stoke the fire, don’t save the ashes,” Mr. Angyal persistently approached restaurants to promote Riedel. Fortunately, this was the 80s economic boom time in Japan, and Mr. Angyal used his networks to successfully schedule appointments to meet restaurant owners in person. “I think a lot of them actually bought their first [wine] glasses, more out of pity, [thinking] this guy's sweating with this case, coming to the restaurant and waiting for two hours. Or some of them maybe were admiring the effort.” Mr. Angyal worked to establish the brand within companies to build relationships with large scale distributions.</p> <p> </p> <p>Mr. Angyal states the main challenge for him at the time was introducing wine culture to those who were not familiar with drinking wine on a daily basis. Therefore, Mr. Angyal actively promoted the product by holding tasting sessions where people got to experience drinking wine from Riedel glasses. “If you taste the difference, it's experiential. If you taste the difference between