[Employee Interview: Senior Manager] The Courage to Step into Uncharted Territory — Taking on the Challenge at enableX

Why he chose enableX in its founding phase, after stints at a major manufacturer and a global consulting firm

2025.06.30

Current position and role

Currently serving as a Senior Manager, Ochi leads delivery while also taking the lead on strategy-formulation projects across business development, marketing, and business growth. In addition, securing pipelines with new clients and driving sales proposal activities are also important parts of his role.

A diverse career path

After graduating from university, Ochi joined the Japanese subsidiary of a major global electronics manufacturer as a new graduate. At the company, which had strong trading-house functions, he was assigned to the accounting and finance management division, where he handled accounting operations, management accounting and corporate-planning work, and budget formulation.

After accumulating about six and a half years of experience, he moved to a major global management consulting firm. Leveraging his prior background, he served as a business consultant focused on the CFO domain. Over his seven-year tenure, he also engaged in business-side projects during the latter three years, including new business concept design and business launches.

He subsequently moved to an apparel e-commerce (EC) company as Head of the Corporate Planning Office. There he handled budget formulation and other duties while also serving as the executive in charge of launching new businesses.

Meeting enableX

Ochi first learned about enableX through a recruiting agent. Among several offers, what ultimately led him to choose enableX was the appeal of an "unexplored frontier."

Ochi: I had also considered returning to a consulting firm, but unlike consulting companies already listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth market or those approaching IPO, enableX had only just been founded. I was drawn to stepping into an unknown territory where you couldn't yet picture how it would grow from here.

The gap he felt after joining

At a newly founded company, the environment of "you simply have to push through with everything you've got" was a clear gap compared with his prior employers, all of which had large corporate parents.

Ochi: My previous employers all had large parent organizations, with solid internal coordination and governance. What you could and could not do was clearly defined, and there were many constraints. At enableX, by contrast, we had to find revenue-generating clients by any means available — referrals through advisors, cold calling, outreach via inquiry forms, and other approaches I had never used before. The down-to-earth reality of "trying every move available" was, in a good sense, a gap from what I had known. I came to feel firsthand how a company gets built from the ground up.

Breadth of autonomy and speed of decision-making

Ochi speaks highly of enableX's breadth of autonomy and speed of decision-making.

Ochi: Contractual matters and items requiring legal judgment need internal review, but for sales approaches and the like, things move forward with a simple "sounds good." Decision-making is exceptionally fast — for anything likely to deliver impact, a quick word with your manager is enough to get a "go ahead." The fact that there are essentially no limits on autonomy and that you can act on your ideas immediately is, in my view, one of the company's strongest points.

Characteristics of internal communication

In an environment where in-office and fully remote members work side by side, communication is centered on online tools such as Teams and on chat.

Ochi: Members are often pressed by their tasks, but they still find pockets of time to communicate, build collaborative relationships, and consult one another. To make this even more vibrant, it might help to have more aggressive bottom-up initiatives — such as junior members proactively setting up meetings. Building that kind of culture is something I'd like to work on going forward.

The difficulty and the appeal of his current work

Working on projects in business development and marketing, he sometimes feels gaps in his specialized knowledge — but rapidly catching up, learning, and delivering to the client is exactly where the difficulty and the appeal lie.

Ochi: Especially with our focus on AI, I find it fascinating that "the more I learn, the more the application areas of AI expand and the broader the repertoire of proposals I can offer clients becomes."

When you actually take a proposal to a client and it lands in an unexpected area, the conversation suddenly takes off and the engagement evolves with both sides learning from each other. That part is genuinely exciting.

Positioning within his career

Ochi says his hands-on experience at operating companies and his consulting background both inform his current delivery work.

Ochi: Being able to stand on the frontline perspective and also think from the vantage points of a department head or board member is, in my view, extremely important from a delivery standpoint.

On his future career, he says: "I don't have anything specific in mind, but if I were to consider starting my own business or going independent down the road, the 'way to build a company' I'm learning here at enableX would be enormously valuable. I feel I've added another option to my career."

A message for prospective applicants

Ochi says enableX is looking for "challengers."

Ochi: We are a company that has only just begun to walk — no one yet knows in which direction or in what shape it will grow. We are in that position ourselves, and at the same time we are the parents raising it. We want people who want to take on challenges that no one has experienced before.

Finally, he offered the following words of encouragement for those who feel it takes courage to step into uncharted territory:

Ochi: There is a lot you simply can't know unless you step in. Of course, I have no intention of dismissing a preference for stability — but if you feel even a flicker of excitement, like setting out on an adventure in the manga One Piece, then taking on the challenge will become a valuable life experience. Making the decision itself is also a challenge, so I encourage you to take that first step.