254 Guillaume Hansali- Country Head Keywords Studios

254 Guillaume Hansali- Country Head Keywords Studios

Author: Dr. Greg Story June 28, 2025 Duration: 1:36:16
  • "Trust, for me, is the ability to predict someone's behaviour—consistency builds that predictability."
  • "Excellence isn't the outcome—it's the rigour of the process, even when the result is uncertain."
  • "You can't sell yourself forever; you have to build trust in the company, not just the founder."
  • "Being vulnerable as a leader unlocks trust—it gives others permission to be real too."
  • "Culture is just norms and heuristics—you shape it by consistently rewarding the right behaviours."

Previously Guillaume was the Founder and Managing Director of Wizcorp; Web Development Consultant Helmut; System Engineer, Consultant Lapyx System.

He has a Master of Science in Computer Science from Francois Rabelais University

Guillaume approaches leadership as a dynamic journey shaped by intuition, experimentation, and personal growth. His early experience of founding a startup in Japan, with no funding and little knowledge of business basics, forged a deep resilience and humility. Over time, he transitioned from instinct-driven decisions to more intentional leadership, grounded in reflection and learning. He discovered that leadership at different company sizes requires entirely different approaches—whereas in a small team the leader is the culture, in larger organisations it's about embedding values and structures that scale.

At the heart of his leadership philosophy is trust, which he defines as the ability to predict behaviour. He believes consistency—especially in mood and decisions—fosters trust. Vulnerability plays a critical role too. Initially reluctant to show weakness, he gradually realized that openly admitting what he didn't know allowed his team to connect more deeply with him, and gave them permission to do the same. This emotional openness, he observed, significantly strengthens engagement and authenticity.

Guillaume emphasizes the importance of separating the self from the business. Early in his career, he equated client service with personal commitment, sometimes undermining internal cohesion. He later recognized the need to build institutional trust in the company, not just in himself. This meant creating repeatable processes, articulating core values, and ensuring every team member could represent the company with consistency and integrity.

He also champions a culture of structured creativity, particularly in high-risk industries like gaming. He views "fun" as an emergent property that can't be predicted or engineered, but must be tested rigorously. Prototypes, constraints, and deliberate iteration are key to fostering innovation while managing risk. Organizational learning, in his view, should focus less on replicating past outcomes and more on documenting and improving the decision-making process.

Leading in Japan, Guillaume sees language and cultural fluency not as optional, but essential for trust and influence. He stresses the need to deeply understand local norms and communicate in ways that resonate. For multicultural teams, he believes the leader's job is to define shared behavioural expectations clearly, without relying on implicit cultural assumptions. Ultimately, Guillaume sees leadership as a journey of self-awareness, consistent example, intentional culture-shaping, and the courage to learn publicly.

 


Hosted by Dr. Greg Story, Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan offers a direct line to the experiences and strategies of executives operating within one of the world's most distinct economies. Each conversation moves beyond theory, focusing on the practical realities of management and leadership as told by those doing the work. You'll hear from a diverse roster of guests, from seasoned leaders at large corporations to innovative founders of growing ventures, all sharing their firsthand accounts of navigating Japan's unique business culture. This podcast provides valuable context on everything from building effective teams and driving organizational change to understanding the nuances of negotiation and customer relations in this market. Whether you're currently leading a team in Japan, planning to expand your business there, or simply curious about how professional success is achieved in a different cultural framework, these interviews deliver grounded insights. Tune in for authentic discussions that cut through the clichés, offering a clearer picture of what it truly takes to succeed. The depth and variety of perspectives make this series a consistently useful resource for anyone engaged with the business landscape in Japan.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan
Podcast Episodes
Frank Packard — Founder & Previous President, AAA Partners Japan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:22
"Very few people in finance can make a declarative sentence." "If you can scale your message from thirty seconds to three minutes, you've got it made." "We want to only do legal business, it has to be rewarding, and it h…
Jim Weisser — President and Co-founder, SignTime [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:26:20
"The team's the most important thing." "I didn't listen very well." "I thought I had most of the answers when I didn't even know the problem." "Treat them as they want to be treated." "If I screwed up, it's also my job t…
Wolfgang Angyal — President of Riedel Japan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:57
"Trust is really the only currency that is the beginning and the end of pretty much every human relation." "You give trust first, before you get trust." "I want to make sure that the least empowered person in the room ca…
Lorenzo Scrimizzi — President, Carpigiani Japan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:27
"the most important thing, I mean in Japan, for business, is to hire the right people" "the keyword is gaining trust" "you need to allow people to make mistakes" "the personal relationship in Japan are extremely importan…
Bob Noddin — Previous CEO of AIG Japan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:35
"Japan is different and hard." "It's consistency, it's sustainability of the vision and the theme that's going to matter." "You couldn't be the super-God sits up in the ivory tower." "Leadership is about inspiring people…
Mike Alfant - CEO Fushion Systems [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:07
"Everyone wants to play for a winning team." "You've got to go to war with the army you've got, not the army you wish you had." "In Japan, talk is cheap. Nobody really pays attention to what people say. They pay attentio…
Peter Jennings -  Previous President of Dow Japan and Korea [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:55
"this job is really primarily a people job" "if you get the right people, you don't have to spend a lot of time micromanaging; get out of their way and let them do their thing" "you have to be the type of boss that peopl…
Ross Rowbury - Previous President, Edelman Japan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:50
"The key thing is that the leader needs to be able to identify where those turning points or tipping points are so that they don't become a bottleneck in that process." "In most cases, I feel like I only have about 30% o…
Paul Hardisty -  Former CEO, Adidas Japan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:22
"The trust part is very important." "Change was a dirty word." "Anything controversial was normally me." "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity." Paul Har…
Harry Hill — Former CEO, Shop Japan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:15
"Everybody having a shared sense of purpose and shared values… is just absolutely imperative." "I trust you, and I start from the perspective of trust." "I would always caution Western leaders… to not just fill up empty…