# Paul Kraft - Previous Country Manager, Haribo Japan

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/japan-s-top-business-interviews-podcast-by-dale-carnegie-training-tokyo-japan-294627/paul-kraft-previous-country-manager-haribo-japan
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/japan-s-top-business-interviews-podcast-by-dale-carnegie-training-tokyo-japan-294627/paul-kraft-previous-country-manager-haribo-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: 2026-05-01T22:30:00+00:00
Episode link: https://japanstopbusinessinterviews.libsyn.com/paul-kraft-previous-country-manager-haribo-japan
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/japanstopbusinessinterviews/Paul_Kraft.mp3?dest-id=2099903
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Duration seconds: 3729

## Resource

"The amount of time you need to spend listening in Japan is very high." "You have to turn up your EQ sensitivity or your EQ radar very, very high." "No matter what, love it." "Feedback should be ninety percent positive." "Leadership is achieving the organisation's goal by maximising the potential of your team." Paul Kraft is the Country Manager for Haribo in Japan and a seasoned food and beverage executive whose career has crossed global brands, entrepreneurial ventures, and distributor-led market development. His relationship with Japan began when he first visited in 1991 on a school trip after studying finance and economics, and he later returned to Osaka to teach English before building his early career in the United States as a product and brand manager in the frozen food sector. Starbucks then recruited him to establish its consumer packaged goods office in Tokyo, where his team expanded the brand beyond coffee shops into convenience store cup coffee, canned coffee, and dry coffee formats. He later launched Honey Baked Ham in Japan through an omnichannel strategy covering food service, retail, and online sales, before joining Nespresso to lead the business-to-business group serving hotels, restaurants, and off-premise clients. At Haribo, Kraft became the company's first person on the ground in Japan, guiding the distributor, shaping strategy, and acting as the bridge between the Japanese market and the global organisation. His career arc reflects adaptability in Japan: learning when to push, when to listen, when to use nemawashi, how to reduce uncertainty, and how to lead through consensus, precedent, relationship depth, and trust. Paul Kraft's leadership journey in Japan is a practical study in how global executives must adapt ambition, speed, and commercial logi…

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