MBA Connect Story: Cruising to Meaningful Endeavours
Keiichi FUJITO (Full-time, Class of 2016)
AED Marketing Lead,
Philips Japan
Keiichi Fujito was previously with SECOM, the largest security firm, for over 12 years. In 2018, he took up a lead marketing role for AED (Automated Electronic Defibrillator) at Philips for the Japanese market.
With a full company sponsorship for a MBA course, Fujito had plenty of choices as to whereabouts to undertake the course. However, he opted for CUHK for a huge array of reasons – its class diversities, practical marketing and entrepreneurship courses and the choices of universities for exchange. Equally important, CUHK business school has a long history of establishment and an extensive alumni network which is crucial for doing business in Asia. All factors combined, CUHK MBA programmes ultimately became the best choice.
The MBA programmes, according to Fujito, taught him to get out of his comfort zone and made him realise who he was, what he could do and what he really wanted to do. The courses also prepared him to challenge himself for a new adventure in his career.
Meanwhile, he found out that more than 200 people died from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) a day in Japan and how these people could be saved with an AED, so just being in the right place at the right time, he noticed a job opportunity available at Phillips doing marketing for AEDs. He then decided to take that on as he felt this job is more rewarding and challenging, plus a sense of mission to eventually be instrumental in changing people’s quality of life directly, despite being offered a promotion at his previous company, for which he has been working for quite a long time. He felt the move could contribute to his career development as a whole.
Throughout the programmes, not to mention the deprivation of sleep in order to complete different class tasks and assignments, the MBA course has widened his business insights on a global basis and enabled him to meet with great classmates from different backgrounds.
The courses in Entrepreneurship were particularly insightful. He learnt how to start a new business as an entrepreneur and other critical issues that are to be taken into consideration, ie: from the perspective of an employee.
Fujito participated in the exchange to Emory Goizueta Business School located at Atlanta, the USA. The exchange experience allowed him to get hands on practical marketing skills and get the hang of the American way of thinking. The study project of more than 30 global companies had uplifted his challenging spirits and amplified the importance of marketing activities.
As the Founder and President of the CUHK MBA Japan Club, he got himself acquainted with how Japanese companies expanded abroad and how they became localised, ie: the trials-and errors they did to match to the local demands through continuous market analysis. The club also gave him lots of opportunities for networking, like meeting with Nisshin, Yakult, Nomura Securities and Bank of Japan, to hear their perspectives on the world economy.
As an added bonus, his accompanying wife and children have enjoyed life in both Hong Kong and Atlanta.
Fujito is glad that he did his MBA and he does not see any limitation to himself for any further growth.
“The MBA life makes me feel that the more energy I use, the more energy I can replenish because CUHK MBA classes are very demanding for me, I came here to boost up my challenging spirits especially for my career development plan.”
Finally, some advice to our students,
“CUHK Business School is amazing. You could pursue what you want and learn as much as you want. I hope you will enjoy yourself by taking the chance to dive into a new world through CUHK. The most important thing is that great people from all over the world come to CUHK for the MBA. My friends, classmates, professors and the MBA office staff members are my most important attainments.”