First Wednesday is a place of creation and harmony for managers with a spirit of challenge and commitment to innovation. Through open and vigorous dialogue without any discernment, members, who are responsible for top-level corporate management in Japan and abroad, share and put into practice high-level, realistic management-related learning, thereby contributing to the development of Japan and Japanese industry.

Since establishing the management club First Wednesday in 2003, we have been in dialogue with the most outstanding management (CEOs, CMOs, CFOs, CIOs) of the leading companies in the global marketplace.

In these changing and uncertain times, we have learned the real-world insights that corporate management operating in the global marketplace needs to realize continued success in the opportunities offered by First Wednesday. Over the past 23 years, we have been able to work with approximately 300 global management leaders and a wide range of opinion leaders across industries, including corporate management, journalists, academia, scientists, politicians, and policy makers. And while these speakers are often members, and members are often speakers, what they have in common at First Wednesday is an emphasis on confidentiality and open dialogue based on a wealth of experience. These are the people who participate in the monthly meetings (off the record) held regularly at First Wednesday. They learn from each other’s successes as well as their failures and current challenges. This is because, rather than “picturesque” stories of corporate management, insights based on experiences gained through many failures and current on-going challenges are far more beneficial for the participating members and can result in opportunities to cooperate with each other. In addition, we have continued to keep the dialogue off the record in order to avoid having cases that are difficult to judge or cases of failure appear in the newspaper the day after the dialogue.

As the founder of First Wednesday, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of you who have contributed to First Wednesday with these profound and outstanding insights. I am equally grateful to the many others whom we were unable to introduce because we were only able to showcase a limited portion of their work in this short movie.

Nobu Kishi
CEO, Artisan Group
Founder and President, First Wednesday

Official Media Partnerships

We are pleased to announce that we have entered into an official media partnership with The Wall Street Journal, the world’s great newspaper.