What are the most significant cases, projects or transactions that you and your legal team have recently been involved in ?

It has been an extremely active year for Blackstone in Japan. On the transaction side, our real estate team acquired Tokyo Garden Terrace Kioicho, a trophy-quality mixed use asset, which was the largest real estate investment ever by a foreign investor in Japan. The PE team took private Infocom, a leading provider of digital comics, and also closed investments in CMIC CRO and I’rom Group, two top Japanese healthcare companies. Disposition activity was also high, with the real estate team selling a number of assets in the hotel, residential and other sectors, and the PE team divesting interests in Alinamin Pharmaceutical in a landmark sale and the IT business of Infocom. Fundraising activity continued to be robust – Japan is now our second largest global market for our private wealth business, and we have been a pioneer in the space in Japan, helping bring four flagship strategies to individual investors in partnerships with leading Japanese financial institutions.

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Our President & Chief Operating Officer, Jon Gray, always ends our weekly global internal calls with: “Stay Calm, Stay Positive, Never Give Up.” It’s a reminder to stay focused on your goals – protecting the firm and our customer’s assets – even during times of adversity. It’s also important to spend time educating and nurturing our talent so that they are better equipped to handle crises and provide effective legal and regulatory advice to our teams. Finally, flexibility is key – by listening to our business partners and asking questions, we can better understand their underlying needs or concerns and help come up with a win-win solution.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about? Why is this?

As a mother to a daughter, I have been quite passionate about recruiting, retaining and nurturing female talent at our firm. I am co-heading the Women’s Initiative Network (WIN) in Japan, where we have provided both casual and formal forums for female professionals to share their experiences and ideas. We have partnered with law firms in hosting panels, as well as inviting senior leadership to give fireside chats to the younger generation and provide advice on thriving in a demanding, fast-paced environment. It is always amazing and inspiring to meet young and talented women in the industry, and I look forward to continuing to support the women at our firm.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?

We believe our external legal advisors are critical, long-term partners to our business. We value lawyers’ technical expertise, but also their ability to quickly understand the client’s needs and come up with innovative and commercial solutions to thorny issues. In-house teams are better positioned to understand the nuances of the business’ requests and make judgments on the path forward. However, given the volume and vast scope of issues we address, we need to partner with law firms for technical analyses and to stay up-to-speed on legal and regulatory developments. We appreciate and respect law firms that take the time to understand key issues for a specific client and have the ability to fine-tune their advice instead of simply reading out regulations or following local market customs.