eBay Japan President Merle Okawara Visits with JEMBA and CHEMBA Students

HONOLULU—Last Friday the Japan-focused MBA and China-focused MBA students were treated to a visit from Merle Okawara, president and CEO of newly launched eBay Japan K.K.

Okawara, a former Hawaii resident, joined eBay Japan in February. Later this month she will step down as CEO of JC Aloha Foods, a frozen foods company she took over from her father nearly 35 years ago. She will continue as chair of the company.

As a female entrepreneur, Okawara encouraged the students to "have high goals and network like crazy." "To be successful in business, you have to devote 120 percent to it," Okawara said. "You also need to love what you do and have fun doing it."

Although she does not have a technology background, Okawara said she was asked to head eBay's Japan unit because she was bicultural, had entrepreneurial experience and had established connections in business. And knowing that the Internet would change the way people do business, "I always wanted to be an active participant in the Internet revolution," she added.

Okawara talked about the obstacles she had as a young foreign woman in Japan trying to start her own business in the 1960s. "I had no credibility," she said. At the time, she also had the disadvantage of not being able to speak Japanese and trying to sell frozen pizza, an unknown product in Japan.

But with innovation and creativity, she overcame those challenges and built her company to the success it is today. "I was too inexperienced to know it couldnÕt be done," she said.

When eBay was launched in Japan, there were already other personal trading companies in Japan, such as Yahoo! Inc. and a few local competitors. However, security is an issue in Japan, a cash-based society where people seldom use credit cards and do not like to give personal information to strangers. To market itself, Okawara said, eBay Japan positioned itself as "the most stable, safest place for our community to have fun." Japanese consumers currently have access to about half of the 4.5 million items listed daily on eBay's U.S. site.

The strategy seems to be working. The June issue of Nikkei ZEROONE magazine named eBay Japan "the best online auction site in Japan."