74: Paul Kraft, Country Manager, HARIBO Japan

<p>Paul Kraft fell in love with Japan after a school trip in the early 90s and originally came to Japan to teach English in Osaka. Afterwards, he became involved in the food business in the US as a product and brand manager for a large privately held frozen food company. Mr. Kraft returned to Japan after being head hunted by Starbucks to open a consumer-packaged goods office in Tokyo. Mr. Kraft then moved on to become the head of HoneyBaked Ham, opening and managing the Japan office. In 2016, Mr. Kraft became the Commercial Director of Nestle Nespresso. Mr. Kraft most recently is the Japan Country Manager for HARIBO Asia Pacific since 2018.</p> <p> </p> <p>Upon arriving in Japan to head the market entry of Starbucks into Japan, Mr. Kraft experienced many culture shocks and made many of the “classic mistakes.” He was first surprised with the way meetings were run in Japan in which discussions could take hours with no agenda. Mr. Kraft also realized his business partners’ priorities were different from his American counterparts. Mr. Kraft further notes the challenge of implementing new ideas as Japanese people tend to be risk averse and rely on past case studies. From these early leadership experiences, Mr. Kraft learned that allowing people to make mistakes was an integral part in creating a culture in which people would take more risks and innovate. He adds active listening is extremely important in order to understand employees and stakeholder needs and establish trust.</p> <p> </p> <p>After Starbucks, Mr. Kraft joined Honeybaked Ham, an American food retailer with over 400 stores in the states. Although a well-established company in the US, Honeybaked Ham was still relatively unknown in Japan when he joined. Therefore, when recruiting new hires, Mr. Kraft put extra effort in persuading prospective employees on a particular story and even serving ham to them during interviews. Furthermore, the company was mostly run by free-lancers and Mr. Kraft enjoyed the entrepreneurial culture.</p> <p> </p> <p>Mr. Kraft then