CAREER
MESSAGE FROM CEO
MESSAGE
Engineering, Financing and Global Outlook: Our 3 Strengths
Masaaki Mezaki, CEO of GPSS Group
Our company stands out in three particular ways, each of which contribute to a unique growth engine. The first is our confidence in our skills as an engineering company. At GPSS, we don’t just work as visionaries; – we have the ability to make our ideas reality, which gives us a certain legitimacy which other companies lack.
The second way we stand out is with our predominance in having deep knowledge of financial matters; – I myself come from an investment banking background. Finance technology is in full display thanks to GPSS having a strong and stable foundation in administration and management.
Finally, a third way in which GPSS stands out is in the global awareness that helps to define our corporate culture, in part made possible by my having the opportunity to travel around the world for over 10 years, along with my aforementioned experience in international investment banking. This is strongly reflected in our hiring practices; – we hire without regard to nationality, with people from a wide variety of backgrounds working together under the banner of “GPSS.”
Developing a Company that Can Generate Greater Happiness
I have been passionately researching happiness since before the founding of this company. I’ve studied social anthropology and travelled around the world to different countries for practical research. As result of these efforts, I started to hold the opinion that there are social systems that can and can not lead human beings to happiness. That thought has served as the nucleus for the creation of this company as well. Anyone who works at a company ends up expending large amounts of time and effort, but if the people at a company aren’t happy doing what they do, there’s no way to create a happy company. It is for that reason that I seek to take something of a different path to develop a company where people can feel happier.
To be more specific, if each individual employee doesn’t have faith that their work is of benefit to society, they will not be able to be happy. In our case, since our central goal – GPSS – is clearly defined and socially relevant, individuals are able to directly see the value they create when they put everything into their work.
Many Personalities Make for Fertile Creative Soil
Happiness depends on individual subjectiveness and it is the greatest possible subjective experience. However, in Japan there is a lot of pressure to agree with others, making it a country in which it is difficult to be happy. A system in which the self is sacrificed in order to prioritize others could be totally opposite from happiness. In reality, a society that shows more respect for individuality will not just end up creating a culture of selfishness, but instead will have a high degree of happiness. Even in Japan, there is agreement over the general idea of promoting individuality and innovation. In spite of this, Japanese culture ends up resisting the particulars, and the individual gets buried. We should not let this happen anymore – it’s good for people to change and for people to be different. I believe this strongly, and as such have aggressively pursued individuality with our company’s human resources.
It doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks. In order to achieve GPSS, any method of work is fine. For that reason, people who were not recognized or denied at other places will find ample opportunity to make the most of their ability with us. Going forward, our company will continue to break down existing social norms, and bring together a group of people who together want to enjoy an atmosphere of freedom. Many personalities make for fertile creative soil, from which new ideas will emerge.