# 280 Mika Matsuo - Former CHRO, AIG Japan Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/japan-s-top-business-interviews-podcast-by-dale-carnegie-training-tokyo-japan-294627/280-mika-matsuo-former-chro-aig-japan Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/japan-s-top-business-interviews-podcast-by-dale-carnegie-training-tokyo-japan-294627/280-mika-matsuo-former-chro-aig-japan.md Podcast: [Japan's Top Business Interviews Podcast By Dale Carnegie Training Tokyo Japan](https://stenobird.com/podcast/japan-s-top-business-interviews-podcast-by-dale-carnegie-training-tokyo-japan-294627) Published: 2026-01-10T01:45:00+00:00 Episode link: https://japanstopbusinessinterviews.libsyn.com/280-mika-matsuo-former-chro-aig-japan Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/japanstopbusinessinterviews/Mika_Matsuo.mp3?dest-id=2099903 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/japan-s-top-business-interviews-podcast-by-dale-carnegie-training-tokyo-japan-294627/episodes/280-mika-matsuo-former-chro-aig-japan Duration seconds: 4062 ## Resource "I listen and I also am always very transparent." "Who cares about what people think about me?" "If my boss, my future boss, thinks that I'm capable, I must be." "Leadership is really defining where we're going, whether it's the end state or whether it's a goal." Mika Matsuo is a Japan-based executive and former AIG Japan CHRO known for repeatedly stepping into unfamiliar roles and delivering change. Born and raised in Japan but educated in an international school environment in Yokohama, she took an early decision to build a global career, studying at Tufts University in Boston and completing an MBA at the University of San Francisco. She began her career at Citibank Japan during the build-out of its retail business, where exposure to strong, international leaders shaped her standards for integrity, preparedness, and opportunity-taking. After earning Six Sigma Master Black Belt credentials, she moved into an internal consulting role at JPMorgan Chase during the post-merger integration period, then joined Tokyo Star Bank as Head of HR without prior HR experience—learning labour law, restructures, and culture change in real time. She later expanded her scope as Head of HR for Asia Pacific at Moody's and returned to Tokyo Star Bank to lead the retail business, navigating crisis leadership after the March 2011 earthquake. She joined AIG to help integrate AIU and Fuji Fire & Marine, later serving nearly a decade and attributing successful integration to clear leadership direction and a "build a new company" mindset. Today, she contributes through board and advisory work, drawing on a career defined by adaptability in Japan's complex corporate environment. Mika Matsuo's career arc reads like a deliberate challenge to the usual Japanese corporate script: international educat… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/japan-s-top-business-interviews-podcast-by-dale-carnegie-training-tokyo-japan-294627/episodes/280-mika-matsuo-former-chro-aig-japan/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/japan-s-top-business-interviews-podcast-by-dale-carnegie-training-tokyo-japan-294627/280-mika-matsuo-former-chro-aig-japan.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.