Organizational efficiency specialist with expertise and insight gained during over 15 years of work and study in multicultural environments in Japan.
Anna is originally from Edinburgh in Scotland and her interest in Japan first started at the age of seventeen when she had the opportunity to work as a volunteer care staff assistant in two Cheshire Homes for the handicapped in the Kansai region of Japan.
She was fascinated by the relationship between language and cultural assumptions, which led her to take a combined undergraduate degree in Japanese & Linguistics followed by a Masters Degree in Linguistics. To satisfy her curiosity in the strange use of English in Japan, her Master’s dissertation addressed the non-linguistic use of English in Japanese advertising. She then took on marketing and project management roles for Tokyo-based offices of British companies.
After several years of working in various multicultural teams Anna realised that her real passion lay in the area of organizational development and team dynamics. Having had the opportunity to observe first-hand the different ways in which business success is dependent on human interaction, and how easily projects can go off the rails on the basis of initial small misunderstandings, she decided to pursue a path that would enable her help to address communication challenges within multicultural diverse teams.
In order to develop her knowledge in this area, Anna decided to take a further Master’s Degree in Organizational Management & Development (OMD) together with a graduate-level Certificate in Evidence Based Coaching at Fielding Graduate University.
Anna continued her interest in organization development through work on two research projects: one at Tokyo University’s International Center, helping design and deliver career planning courses to help non-Japanese students looking to work in Japan, and another project based on helping Japanese organizations create team cultures that support learning, and hence, create an environment where non-Japanese employees or new employees are better able to contribute to the success of the business.
During the last few years, Anna has spent most of her time in large international organizations as an organizational development consultant, leadership development specialist, strategic human resources businesss partner and executive coach.
Click here to find out more information about Anna’s background, expertise and research interests.