120: David Bennett, former President, Lenovo Japan

<p>Mr. David Bennett has been in Japan for more than 10 years in total. He has lived in Japan throughout his student years, and came back after graduation on the JET program for two years before joining AMD, an American multinational semiconductor company in Tokyo. His first leadership role would be with Lenovo Japan and NEC. Currently, Mr. Bennett has moved on from Japan and has become the Chief Customer Office at Tenstorrent Inc in the US.</p> <p> </p> <p>As the President of Lenovo Japan, and the CEO of NEC Personal Computers, which is a joint venture between Lenovo and NEC Corporation, Mr. Bennett led both a foreign and domestic company. Since the skillset required to lead a multinational company versus a traditional domestic company is different, he created a hybrid culture, blending the best of both worlds. He took certain parts of Japanese traditions and business approaches and fine-tuned them to make them more suitable for the organization. Additionally, the organization spent much time holding cultural and social events to increase employee engagement and cooperation.</p> <p> </p> <p>To get innovation while managing two companies with different characteristics, the company would implement many initiatives such as holding contests and giving out awards. These activities pushed the team to feel they could be more open and try something new, and others will have their back. As a result, the company kicked off things that had never been done before in the PC industry, like the world's first Gaming PC Leasing Service, Sugu Game. Mr. Bennett accepts mistakes as long as the reasons behind them are rational and the intention was to benefit the business. Moreover, Lenovo has a concept called Fu Pan. This is similar to Kaizen which is a continuous process of reflection. After major sales activity, the team would go back and reflect on what went right, what didn't go well, and what can they learn. Mr. Bennett says through those meetings, people gained innovation and felt empowered to try new ideas and take risks.</p