44: Christian Wolf, Managing Director, JAS Forwarding Japan

<p> </p> <p>Christian Wolf, Managing Director of JAS Forwarding Japan originally moved to Japan straight out of university in Germany where he worked in the freight and logistics industry as a student. He first started out as a roads development manager at DHL, developing new business for air and ocean freight transportation from Germany to Japan. Upon moving to Japan from a small village in Germany, Mr. Wolf experienced culture shock, and quickly realized he needed to be “very persistent” and have high “frustration tolerance” to be successful.</p> <p> </p> <p>Mr. Wolf then moved on to work in the project forwarding business at Panalpina where he dealt with large scale projects with complex challenges such as construction schedules, liabilities involving different transportation modes, and worked alongside engineer specialists. In 2011 Mr. Wolf joined JAS to set up a new project forwarding unit from scratch. He recalls the earlier months as a challenging time since he was pressured to gain profit quite quickly while motivating his team to keep pushing with a positive attitude.</p> <p> </p> <p>On leading in Japan, Mr. Wolf indicates how difficult it was for him to initially gain the trust from his customers and employees and maintain a positive attitude within his team members. He claims: “You need to gain trust from the customer and it is not seldom that you are quoting for over one year without seeing them... It's a very common process. And there, even if you have a lot of setbacks, you need to be calm and need to demonstrate that we are going to get there.” When faced with challenges such as consecutive profit-losing months, Mr. Wolf says it is important to cut down on your expectations and generate rewarding situations. He also points to open and honest communication with every member of the team as a vital aspect of building trust. Gradually, the new unit grew by building on client relationships and providing expertise on complex transportation solutions. In 2014 he stepped into his current role as Managing D