40: Timothy Langley, CEO, Langley Esquire

<p>Timothy Langley has been in Japan for over 40 years and has an intriguing career in American and Japanese public affairs. Mr. Langley originally grew up in Okinawa where his father’s military post was stationed. After graduating from the University of Georgia, Mr. Langley taught English and played for the Santa Monica Rugby Club. He set his path to become a lawyer through the <em>Monbusho</em> scholarship and attended Tohoku University to study law but was rejected from taking the bar exam as a foreigner since it had “never been done.” Unable to sit for the bar, Mr. Langley landed a job at the Japanese National Parliament after writing to a prominent Japanese politician and sending his resumes. Since this was the first time a foreigner was working inside the Japanese government, Mr. Langley was featured in the media within and outside of Japan including the American CBS show, <em>60 minutes.</em></p> <p><em> </em></p> <p>Mr. Langley eventually became an official lawyer after completing a law program at Georgetown. After working in Atlanta for a few years at a law firm, Mr. Langley was hired as an attorney for a manufacturing company in Kyoto to deal with a trade issue they were facing with the US government. Mr. Langley calls this experience working for a traditional Japanese company to be “a valuable experience in seeing how the Japanese work…how decisions are being made.” He also notes the difference in leadership that he observed: “basically since it's a Japanese company, you're going to be there until you die. So that leadership and that aspiration that you might have to be a leader is applied very differently than it might be in a competitive environment, such as in the United States…and [Japanese] people [are] very risk averse as, as people know. And they're punctual, they get the job done, but they follow the manual.</p> <p> </p> <p>Mr. Langley then became the representative for the Commonwealth of Kentucky in Japan where he served for two years and gained some early leadership experience managing sever