#5.5 Kaori Kitamoto, working style as a Business Manager, and a mother

Hello!
This is Casey, and I’m now working at Open Room Inc. as an internship.

In this series, I aim to show what Open Room is doing through a model, who has no experiences in business, learning Japanese real estate industry, Digital Transformation (DX), and SaaS business in an international startup which tackles the DX in real estate industry that is said one of the most difficult venture in Japan.

This will be the last episode of our team interview so far.  Last but not least, we will introduce our Business Manager, Kaori san!
She is in charge of business domain as well as balancing out our team, while raising a child at home.  I would like to dig into her working style, and how she manage both work and family.

A variety of experience leads to "Customer Success"

C: Thank you for having time!

K: I’m a bit nervous because I’m not really good at talking, but I’ll do my best.

C: Please take it easy haha.  I was looking forward to talking with you since we have interactions in daily work while not knowing personal stories.

K: True.  We have less chances to know each other in remote work.  But your interview articles are giving us a chance to learn about our members!

C: I’m glad to hear that!  Other members are also telling me the same thing.

C: I’d like to move to the questions, starting with where you live.

K: I live in Kyoto.  I was born and raised in Kyoto until my high school years.

C: I see!  Where did you go for university?

K: I went to study abroad in Kamloops, Canada which is about 4 hours drive from Vancouver.

C: What was your major?

K: It was Hotel and Resort Management.  I always liked speaking English from my childhood and went to an English conversation class, which had built my interest toward study abroad.

C: How did you choose your major?

K: I was studying English just because I liked it until when I had to choose university and what to study further.  What I had thought, which led to my current job as well, was that I like humans and if I would make that as a job, that should include customer service domain such as tourism.

C: Was the university interesting as you expected?

K: Yes it was!  While I mainly studied business management, I also had an internship program called practicum where you can get credits in summer vacation.  I chose to work in a hotel in Kyoto so that I could go back to my hometown at the same time.  It was really a great experience.

C: That’s hitting two birds with one stone!  So did you build your career in that field after graduation?

K: Yes, but it didn’t go easy.  After the internship, I gained my interest in the hotel and tourism industry further, and decided to work in Japan.  However, since it was during the period of so-called “ice age of job hunting” and I had a gap with the Japanese graduating season, I couldn’t apply for the new graduates’ recruitment.  Therefore, I had to apply for the mid-career recruitment even though I had no experience.  At last, I started my career in a tourism company as a contract employee.

C: I imagine there weren't as many students going to study abroad as these days so that the situation was tough… How long did you work in the company?

K: I extended the one year contract for once or twice.  Then I changed my job to work in a service office, which is similar to a shared office today, as a full-time employee.  At the office, we rented a luxury office as small compartments, while providing reception and secretary service.

C: What work did you do there?

K: I first joined as a receptionist and secretary, and supported customers.  Later, I got promoted to a store manager to cover the domains of leasing sales, recruiting, and team management.  It was interesting to experience a wide range of work, which sounds similar to my current job.

C: It really does!  You cover a wide range of business domains in our company.

K: The sales style of the company back then was not really pushing, but rather extracting out customers’ needs from conversations which suited me well and became the basis of the idea of Customer Success.  It was lucky for me to learn such a style.

C: It’s a very advanced working style.  I always thought that you have been working in authentic business domains throughout your career as my impression of working together, but you started from the tourism and customer service area, and have formed your knowledge right in the middle of there and kind of authentic business domains.

K: As I said, my basis is “I like communicating with people”, and I'd rather like to listen to others.  Even when I was a child, I liked being in a group of adults to listen to their stories.  I think that relates to the idea of customer service and customer success.

C: I feel like everything made a line.

K: It feels like that when I look back.  I didn’t like sales back then though haha.

C: Is that all the career until you started to work with Open Room?

K: It’s roughly like that, but I also had an experience in a property management company a little after I got interested in the real estate industry by managing the rental office.

C: Oh really?  That directly relates to your current job.

K: It sure does. However, it wasn’t the real estate job where I met Toyo for the first time.  It was when I quit my job and returned to Kyoto, a mutual friend told me that he wanted to introduce me to a person who is going to start a business in Kyoto.

C: Interesting.  Did you join Open Room right away?

K: It wasn’t yet a good timing for me, and Toyo did not want to increase the number of members soon so we were like let’s meet again.  After a few years when I put my son into a nursery school and was thinking of restarting work, I contacted Toyo to talk again.

C: Back then, how was the situation of Open Room?

K: They were building a previous service of Forest, and Toyo showed it to me when I met him.  My impression was that he dove into a niche market haha.  I started to work once a week at first, gradually the work increased, and I became a full-time employee within a half year.

C: That was quite fast to become a full-time worker.

K: It was right when they were renewing the service into the current Forest, and Toyo needed help in business domains.

C: Had they already introduced remote working?

K: Covid-19 hadn’t yet struck Japan heavily when I joined so most of the members were still working in the office, but the office was located only in Tokyo back then therefore I worked remotely from Kyoto from the beginning.  All the members needed to work remotely shortly after that though.

C: Was it one reason to decide working with Open Room that you can work remotely because you have to take care of the house?

 K: It was before Covid-19 so that I wasn’t thinking about it, but as a result, I got less effect from it.

C: It’s like pioneering the modern working style.

Set less “must do”, and rather seek for the best of the moment

C: What is your job range in Open Room?  It seems you are working quite cross-sectionally.

K: I’m mainly responsible for customer service while dealing with a variety of tasks on the business side with Toyo.  Certainly there will be cooperations with the tech team or design team, then I will become a communication point and adjust the tasks cross-sectionally.

C: What is the interesting point of working in Open Room?

K: Yet again, I like to communicate with people so that it is attractive that I can cooperate not only with our customers, but also with other teams in our company.  It is an appealing point of a small team including the stimulations I get from it.

C: What is the difficult point in contrast?

K: As the speed of business and service development are fast, it is tough to prepare materials in order to catch up with the clients.

C: Since you have to cover a wide range, it might be hard to coordinate everything.

K: But I take all the difficulties as a benefit!

C: Wonderful!  What is your average schedule of weekdays?

K: I work from 9:30 to 17:00.  I leave my house at 17:05 to pick up my son.

C: You have to finish early for your son.  How old is he?

K: He became 4 years old recently.  Because I can’t do anything for the house when he is around, I prepare dinner while my husband takes my son to the nursery school.

C: That’s impressive!  I have to learn from you.

K: If you work in Tokyo, it’s not rare to have an hour commute, right?  Considering that, I’m lucky that I can utilize the time.

C: You are able to cope with both work and house thanks to the remote work over all.

K: Absolutely!  There are many mothers who commute to work, but I wonder how they cope with everything.

C: It must be hard…  Do you have any tips to balance out your work in company and home?

K: I try not to pursue perfection.  I set less “must do” in both, and rather perform the best for the moment.

C: That resonates with me too.

K: Everyone has down days, and when I have a difficulty in work, I sometimes face my son with that mindset.  Instead of forcing yourself to be cheerful, you can take baby steps to have less regrets.

C: I would like to listen to this topic for another 30 minutes haha.

K: Haha.  Well, I also struggle when my son gets sick because I have to leave work and that can cause problems for the team.

C: But I find the team has understanding, especially Toyo who has a young son.  The other day when he said he will have a half day off in order to participate in his son’s open class, I thought that was wonderful.  It is a good culture of Open Room I think.

K: It sure is!  About the working style, we usually use Slack to communicate with the team because of the remote work, I can catch up with the situation even when I’m on the way to pick up my son or playing with him.

C: There are many benefits in working style.

The team that cooperate each other like a family

With her son, at Kanazawa as a company trip

C: How do you find your position in Open Room?

K: As I mentioned earlier, I might be the communication point.  Also, as I am the oldest member in the company, I hope that I can support the members with a huge kindness like a mother.  Nevertheless, same as raising a child, it doesn’t always work perfectly.  Similar to how a child teaches and supports his/her parents, I get taught and supported by the team.

C: It is nice how you all mutually support each other.  How would you describe Open Room in short?

K: How could I say…  I think we have a good balance of individual play and team play as we  all have discretion and responsibility while we discuss deeply to ensure success.  Although each member has craftsmanship and does not compromise easily, they all listen to others’ opinions, integrate them, and create a synergistic effect.

C: I see it.  As the last question, what kind of person would fit in Open Room?

K: This overlaps what I just said, but someone who can be particular about one’s work would be good.  And also who can enjoy making a service, which doesn’t currently exist, as a team.

C: Okay!  I’m sorry that I had to rush in the latter half because I wanted to ask each thing deeply, but I really enjoyed your story.  Thank you very much!

K: That’s my words, thank you!

How was the interview?  I personally was impressed by how her cope with both work and family, and how she sets her mind toward job.  I guess a lot of people could sympathize with the story.
This was the last part of our member interview series for now, but we continue to show our culture, so stay tuned!!

Casey

If you are interested, check the recruiting page