President Oi, let me start by asking about your memories of your school days, as well as your hobbies and personal motto. You were a liberal arts student.

That's right. I majored in history in the Faculty of Letters. When I was on a job hunt like many other students, visiting various corporations in various fields, I learned of a company called JEOL. So, I attended its recruitment session, where they told me about their business, and I found the company quite interesting.

What are your memories of your school days?

I was just an ordinary student. My hobby is playing classical piano. I was a member of a student club called "Piano-no-kai" (Piano Circle) at university, and we would hold concerts and other events. I still play the piano once in a while.

Do you have any personal motto or favorite words?

None in particular, but I like what our company philosophy says. It says things like "challenges the world's highest technology" and "contributing to the progress in science."

Tell us about what happened after you joined the company.

My career started at the Tokyo Branch, where I worked as a sales rep mainly for electron microscopes. Fortunately, I had good customers and spent very happy times at this branch. Having been a liberal arts student, I knew almost nothing about much of my work at first. But it was fun to know what kinds of research the professors were doing and what private companies solved through their R&D activities.

Then, I got transferred to the overseas sales department, where I oversaw the business in Asia from Tokyo for about two years. After that, I worked in Boston, U.S. for nine years.

So, you spent nine years abroad. The total time working in overseas sales is about 11 years when the time you spent for Asia is included.

You're right. After returning to Japan, I was in charge of a group for promoting the sale of electron microscopes for a year. Then, for the following three years, I worked as a chief engineer for a department that dealt with scanning electron microscopes. All of my subordinates had majored in science at university, and every one of them was older than me.

Your company deals with very challenging, leading-edge technologies. They must be difficult to understand.

Understanding new design-related technologies is hard to do. In hindsight, though, I think that management wanted me to act as an intermediate between engineering and market, figuring out how a specific technology would help us gain a competitive edge in a specific market.

In order to lead a tech company, you need to be savvy about technology.

Yes. I have learned a lot about technical issues and the steps of the product development process. The past three years have given me a pretty good experience in terms of trying new things.

Next, let me ask you about your company. Your company and mine have a lot in common. Both companies were established in the same year and mark the 75th anniversary this year. We are both tech companies. You do business in three segments - scientific and metrology instruments, industrial equipment, and medical equipment. We do business in two - metrology and semiconductors. We are also similar in scale, with roughly 4,000 group employees each. We are both in the final year of our respective three-year mid-term business plans, and our target figures are almost the same. All this makes me feel a sense of affinity with you. Of the products and services you provide, which do you think is the greatest asset? What have you been focused on, and what sets it apart from the rest?

Our company was established to develop electron microscopes. As you know, electron microscopes are used to see and measure very tiny things. We have been focused on the technologies for these instruments. These days, there is a growing need to see and measure things in the realm of nanometers. Our strength is the ability to deal with microscopic things in many different ways using cutting-edge technologies.

These are very niche technologies. The Japanese government has selected us as one of the global niche top companies twice - once for electron microscopes and once for nuclear magnetic resonators or NMRs. We have technologies that only a few companies in the world have.

I suppose you place emphasis on sustainability activities, too. What are you doing to ensure sustainability?

I think there are two key points. I hate to brag, but one is to keep expanding our business. That helps a lot in contributing to science and technology on a continuous basis. For example, electron microscopes made it possible to discover a COVID-19 virus strain and observe how it binds to human proteins, which led to the development of a vaccine.

The other key point is science education. Our special team of staff visits elementary schools and junior high schools with desk-top electron microscopes to give lessons almost every day.

To keep evolving technology, human resources are critically important. Is there anything in particular you do to address this need?

NMRs and electron microscopes involve very niche technologies. There are almost no university graduates in Japan who master the basics of these technologies before joining the company. That leaves us with no option but to develop human resources on our own. But we already have a basis for it. With regard to electron microscopes, for example, there are some constituent technologies such as electro-optical technology for producing lenses and vacuum technology. We have professionals for each of these technologies and a menu of programs for training engineers. We also have our employees work at universities and laboratories to develop human resources well versed in a specific field of technology.

Another area of interest is overseas business. We are focused on developing human resources capable of doing business globally and are stepping up our English education program.

What exactly do you do for English education?

We have 26 overseas offices. Every year, we select about 100 employees from across the company as candidates for working abroad in the future. These people take high-quality English lessons with all expenses paid by the company.

So, your company is committed to developing human resources capable of working successfully abroad.

That's right. We now export to more than 130 countries across the world, the ratio of export being around 65%. Maintaining and expanding our overseas network is extremely important. Without this network, our company will not grow. That's why we put enormous emphasis on English education, and we encourage our engineers to do presentations at overseas academic conferences to gain experience.

Tell us about where you use our products and what you think of them?

I had my people do a little research about how we came to introduce your measuring instruments. The coordinate measuring machine, which we have just decided to upgrade, was introduced in 1999 and has been used continuously since then. Before that time, much of the work relied on craftsmanship and, according to what I was told, this coordinate measuring machine was one of the reasons that made the engineers back then realize that there would be no progress in manufacturing unless such a measurement technique was adopted.

We use your measuring instrument, for example, to measure the height and roundness of the lens in an electron microscope. We have created a software program by ourselves for automatic measurement. I hear that you have been flexibly tweaking the new measuring instrument you are going to deliver to us to make sure that our software program runs smoothly on it. I really appreciate your cooperation.

The measuring instrument we are going to deliver to you features the world's highest accuracy. I suppose that you are quite fixated on the accuracy of every part of your machine.

Yes. We need to control the movement of the machine in vacuum in nanometers. That requires extremely high levels of accuracy and quality.

Tell us about what you think of your business and manufacturing in general as you move toward the future.

I think the philosophy of the founder and our corporate DNA that drives us to contribute to science and technology are very important. These enhance employee engagement as well. But it's not just that. We need a cycle where we make profits and then invest those profits in R&D and further investments, thereby doing the leading-edge stuff. In my view, scientific and measuring instruments are important not only in the area of science and technology, but they are also vital in the area of industry. For example, we have supplied major semiconductor manufacturers in Taiwan and South Korea with electron microscopes we developed for semiconductors.

By providing unique solutions to big markets, we grow our company and earn profits, leading to social contribution. I hope to keep this virtuous cycle going.