Kensuke Yamamoto | Employee Interviews

Is this really good enough?

Seeking work only I could do,

I bet my life on this challenge.

Sales & CS

Kensuke Yamamoto

After working in customer success and as a data engineer at an IT company, he worked at a major global consulting firm on projects covering data strategy, data platform implementation and business process reform. At ABCD he leads the work end to end, from new business development to building trade operations and supporting exports.

Leaving a major consulting firm.The unease of an organization that runs fine without me was the starting point

In my previous job I was surrounded by excellent colleagues, trusted with rewarding work, and my days felt full. Yet inside that fortunate environment, something kept nagging at me. This organization runs fine without me. There are plenty of replacements, and my presence is not what decisively moves the business. The more closely I watched people my own age launch their own ventures and charge ahead, the more quietly the impatience grew: is staying like this really good enough for me?

If I kept going this way, it would end with the whole path already visible. That was when I heard about ABCD. At the time, the shape of the business had not even been settled. Even so, I was strongly drawn to the seriousness and the energy behind wanting to change the world. Precisely because nothing was decided, there was a chance to create it myself. In this environment I could put my life on the line for work only I could do. That was my instinct.

The one thing I wanted to avoid was regretting that I had never tried. In the end, that is what pushed me forward.

There is a role only I can play.Steady steps become the foundation that carries the business

Honestly, my first year after joining was a real struggle. I told myself I simply had to do everything myself, took it all on alone, and the harder I worked the more I spun my wheels.

The turning point came when I rethought how I was fighting. I stopped trying to win by being better than other people and shifted my focus to what contribution only I could make. In that moment I realized that the experience I had built up would come into its own precisely here.

Today, as a manager in sales and customer success, I handle the work end to end, from developing buyers to building our trade operations. What I face is international trade, a field where much is still not in order. A lot of it looks unglamorous and takes real effort. Even so, we sort it out piece by piece and turn it into a process anyone can run. What we build up that way eventually becomes the foundation that carries the business. Watching something formless gain a logic of its own and start to move is where the particular appeal of this work lies.

Small things, accumulated, move the world.Crossing borders to take on an enormous market

What ABCD is taking on is an enormous field where people and goods move across borders, one that could change the structure of Japan and of the world. We go into the field, grasp our customers' problems firsthand, and give shape to the mechanisms that solve them, one at a time. This business is unquestionably needed and carries great value. The further we go, the more strongly I feel it.

Going forward, I want to hold on to the stance of facing every single problem and the value it creates for the customer. I believe the sum of the value built that way will eventually become a business that moves the world.

Because this is a challenge to open up a new world, the standard we are held to is by no means low. What separates results, though, is not exceptional talent. It is whether you hold the strong conviction that you will make this business real no matter what, and see it through to the end. If you trust what you are good at and build steadily, you can hold your own even on a world stage. Whatever the situation, I want to be someone who can move things forward with his own hands. And so that one day I can look the person who decided to take this on squarely in the eye and say from the heart that it was the most interesting life I could have lived, I will make the path I chose the right answer, without fail.