This feature article series involves PayPay employees giving their honest opinion on why they joined, and the surprises encountered after joining. Emiko Kawada from the Management Planning Department!
Emiko Kawada
Management Planning Department
I am in charge of the operation of meetings involving managerial decisions, such as the management meeting and the board of directors meeting, handling inquiries about regulations, and managing the business of the Sales Group.
Our team prepares meeting materials for the weekly management meeting. We edit the documents sent from various departments within the company. The work of handling inquiries about regulations involves responding to questions on matters based on the regulations controlled by the Management Planning Department, such as which approval form is appropriate. As for the business management of the Sales Group, I am responsible for PL forecasting (mainly cost-related) and checking/approving internal approval requests (ringi).
PayPay Inside-Out
From where & why did you join PayPay?
Emiko Kawada
I joined PayPay in July 2021. It is the third company for me. As a new graduate, I joined a national newspaper company. I worked as an area manager for eight and a half years, in business administration for an affiliated company for five and a half years, and as secretary to the president for two years. After that, I moved to a beauty care sales company, where I was involved in all kinds of work around the president’s office, such as negotiating with financial institutions for fundraising, managing shareholders’ meetings and board meetings, and capital increase procedures. It was a small business, so I was in charge of a wide range of tasks.
The reason why I decided to join PayPay was because I was a PayPay user myself! The biggest reason is that I wanted to work for a company that makes products and services that are a part of my life. I loved the idea of playing a part in creating a new society and a rich lifestyle for people. In addition, the members I talked to in the interview were wonderful and I felt like working with them, so I joined the company.
PayPay Inside-Out
What surprised you after joining PayPay?
Emiko Kawada
Everything goes so fast!
One of my main responsibilities is to work with my colleagues to compile materials for the weekly management meeting. These meetings always involve a substantial amount of high-quality discussion on matters requiring decision-making and communication by the management team. Things move so fast at PayPay that so many matters are raised every week. I feel that projects are approved and released three times faster than at conventional Japanese companies (maybe even 10 times faster).
On the other hand, in order to continue to expand our business at this rate, we need more people. Many members are joining my team, the Management Planning Department, one after another. As a result, I’ve only been with the company for five months, but I’ve already become a veteran (lol). I believe that everyone is expected to hit the ground running once they join. I was also surprised by the size of the responsibilities that I was assigned after joining, and the environment that prepared me to play an active role right away.
PayPay Inside-Out
Are you happy having joined PayPay?
Emiko Kawada
I’m so glad I joined! Since there are many people with different backgrounds at PayPay, I have a strong feeling that my experience and knowledge are expanding at an accelerating pace. It is exciting and wonderful for me to be able to grow in an environment that continues to create the world of the future at an overwhelming speed, even though it can be tough at times. Of course, since our backgrounds are different, we may not be on the same page, or we may need to check our assumptions. I’m still struggling with jargon and PayPay-specific abbreviations. But many people who work at PayPay do not mind answering even the most trivial questions and are polite about it. If there’s something I don’t understand, I can easily ask someone from another department via Slack DM.
As I joined PayPay after the WFA policy started, I have never met most of the people in person except for the members from my department. Nevertheless, I think the fact that many people in all departments are good communicators makes it easy to work here.
Click here to apply for the same position as Kawada-san.
Special thanks：Emiko Kawada / Edited by: Keiko (PayPay Inside-Out Editor)
*Employees’ affiliations are those of the time of the interview.
