New Year Message to Managerial Staff

Happy New Year!

At the beginning of a usual year, I would make a tour of our business bases in Japan to give a lecture to the managerial staff. This year, however, due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, I spoke only to the Head Office department managers in Osaka on January 12 to share my thoughts as specifically as possible with them.

In Japan, disappointing our expectations heightened due to the very small number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at the end of 2021, the coronavirus has been raging again since the new year began. I trust that you as the managerial staff will thoroughly consider a plan on what you and all those working under your leadership should do steadily every day to ensure that the Company endures the pandemic and will take the lead in implementing such a plan. At the beginning of 2022, I request that all Sumitomo Electric employees work to build a corporate structure resilient to changes, make the most of business opportunities, and ensure legal compliance thoroughly. The key to achieving all these is communication: efforts to convey clear messages, ensure that the content of your messages will be fully understood, and inspire your audience to take action and build close relationships with each other. Do not be content with just conveying messages to others. Any message will be meaningless unless its recipients can fully understand its content. If you truly succeed in making the content of your messages fully understood by your intended audience, those messages will inspire them to take action. You must convey messages repeatedly until the recipients take action. Their action will in turn lead to close relationships between all those involved, including themselves. In other words, their action will help create an open, bright, and lively workplace environment based on solidarity.

Aspiring employees will drive the Company to growth. I hope that, based on the Sumitomo Spirit, everyone working at Sumitomo Electric will reflect deeply on what they should do and take action to achieve VISION 2022 toward the Company's giant leap in 2023.