JMEC23 Reflection - Sébastien Arribe

CASE STUDY – Interview

Sébastien Arribe

Q1: Where are you from? When did you move to Japan and why?

A: I am French and have been interested in Asia since I was young. After graduating I worked in Singapore for two years. When my contract ended, a friend suggested I come to Japan to work. I saw that it was possible to get a job in my industry (I am software engineer) without speaking any Japanese and bought my airplane ticket!

Q2. Why did you participate in JMEC? What year?

A: A colleague of mine is a JMEC alumni and he strongly recommended me to take the program. At that time, I was planning to get an MBA in the distant future. I thought it’d be a good introduction to business.

Q3: How was your JMEC experience? How is it relevant to your business today?

A: I thoroughly enjoyed the JMEC lectures (unfortunately I could not participate in the competition this year). All lecturers are very knowledgeable and interested in what they do.

After one lecture, I asked the lecturer why he was waking up every Saturday to give classes when he has his own business and a family to take care of. He replied that it's his passion. And we can see that passion in most lecturers. They all really like what they do and inspire me to want to learn more about it, whether it was finance market research or anything else.

So yes, I'd definitely participate in the competition next year because the competition is the perfect way to apply the skills we learned during the lectures.

Q4: Would you recommend the program to others? What advice do you give current JMEC participants?

A: I am already recommending JMEC to people I meet that want to start a business. Because many of the lecturers are entrepreneurs and business owners, they all have experienced failures and successes. Most of them are now very successful, so they have a lot to teach.

In addition, the lecturers and participants come from different backgrounds which is a great opportunity for networking, either for finding partners when starting a business or for people who just arrived in Japan.