After completing her studies in Japan’s picturesque Northern city of Hokkaido, Mina Hoshizawa began her legal career with Freshfields’s Tokyo office before moving in-house. Now a compliance manager in German healthcare behemoth Bayer’s Law, Patents & Compliance section, she manages other compliance professionals and supports them in their goals and objectives. Joe Boswell caught up with Mina on our last trip to Japan and asked her to reflect on her career so far, her professional passions and the advice she would give to her younger self.
GC: First, can you talk through your career path in your own words?
MH: I passed the bar exam when in university. After graduation , I went through the legal training for about eighteen months. After qualification, I spent about two and a half years at the Tokyo office of Freshfields. I was involved in due diligence work in M&A deals, corporate secretary matters, and so on: basically a normal junior associate. Eleven years ago, I left the firm to be closer to the business side of things. At Bayer, I started my career as an in-house lawyer for its Crop Science business, sitting in its Leadership
Team. I gradually switched gear to the compliance field and am now compliance manager, looking after Bayer in Japan as a whole.
GC: So you started off at a major international law firm. How did you find the culture there compared to working as an in-house counsel?
MH: Well, as you can easily imagine, they’re extremely hardworking and very professional in Freshfields. Bayer offers, a healthier work-life balance, I would say.
Having said that, what I learned in Freshfields really is the basis of who I am today. Of course, as an in-house lawyer you have to do hundreds of things besides core legal work, but at the same time I am also responsible for checking – for instance – a compliance investigation report that needs to be accurate. This is a matter that could cause future litigation, requiring very careful handling. So, whenever I am in charge of finalising a particularly tough document, the fundamental legal skill and attention to detail that I learned at Freshfields is really useful.
GC: What is your greatest passion when it comes to your life as an in-house lawyer?
MH: Doing things professionally at all times is important. But I am also passionate about how my team is effectively working with the business and how I can help them to really enjoy their work. I take time to think: are they really happy to work at Bayer, and in this team? Do they feel that they are really contributing to Bayer’s compliance culture? And so on. Lawyers can tend to be more focused on being detail-oriented and perfectly correct at all times, but I am more into developing my team.
GC: What are the main things you try to prioritise as a leader?
MH: I try not to act or look perfect, and make sure to seek support from my team members, especially because I have less experience in the pharmaceutical industry than them. I show my vulnerability and then, from there, we can build relationships with each other and they can open up what they are struggling with, which helps everyone. In short, I do not pretend to be perfect as a leader, and admit my own weaknesses to my team.
GC: Have you seen the legal community in Japan change over the course of your time working as an in-house counsel?
MH: Well, it is definitely changing, there is no doubt about that. The number of in-house lawyers who are qualified in Japan and around the world is growing. One of the potentially biggest changes would be that a few years ago, it was common that in-house lawyers would first experience private practice legal work for a few years or even up to ten years before moving in-house. But now quite a lot of first year, newly- qualified lawyers directly join in-house legal teams in Japan directly. This is caused by two things: firstly, a growing number prefer to be in-house lawyers; and secondly, because there are not enough positions available even if they wanted to join law firms.
I learned a lot when I was at Freshfields, and I recommend that everyone should have at least one year of experience in private practice. I think unless you are in a big company, which already has a number of qualified lawyers, it will be challenging for newly qualified lawyers to learn how to be a first-class in-house counsel in Japan.
GC: As a ‘Rising star’ in the profession, what tips would you give to other young Japanese people who want a career in the in-house legal and compliance world?
MH: If opportunity allows, I recommend joining a law firm first even if you plan to be an in-house counsel later. This is because I learned a lot about being professional at the law firm.
GC: What about the advice you would give a younger version of yourself? Say, when you were just finishing University.
MH: Well, I may advise my younger self to be more open to leaving Japan for a few years to work somewhere else. That would have opened up more understanding on other cultures and other perspectives. This would be a big plus for an in-house lawyer working in an international company like Bayer.
