Debbie Howard, President
Debbie has lived and worked in Japan for 24 years. Prior to founding JMRN, she worked for four years as Research Coordinator for INFOPLAN, the marketing research division of McCann-Erickson Hakuhodo, where she handled major consumer research accounts.
Debbie attended the Graduate Business School at Georgia State University after graduating from the University of South Carolina, and has a 33-year career overall in marketing and communications.
Although her passion to achieve success as a female entrepreneur in Japan consumes much of her time both in and away from the office, Debbie can usually be found during one of her infrequent days off engaged in her other passion -- golf. Having played some of the most challenging courses in Asia, Australia and the U.S., Debbie finds the game to be a paradigm for success in Japan with its prerequisites of form, focus and commitment -- seasoned, of course, with a little luck and occasional swearing.
Debbie served as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) in 2004 and 2005, chairman in 2006 and 2007, and continues to serve as ACCJ President Emeritus. (click here to view an online interview with Debbie Howard).
A. Robert Deter, Managing Director
Bob has 20 years of experience in Japan and an over 30-year career in marketing and information services. Besides developing and maintaining online information retrieval systems indispensable to JMRN, he is instrumental in ensuring quality at all stages of the research process from methodology design through final report output.
Bob's longtime interest in IT hardware and software solutions consumes much of his time both during and after office hours. However, his leisure activities suggest a very different personality. Specifically, Bob is an avid fan of Harley Davidson motorcycles, and structures many of his vacations around participating in cross-country touring events in the U.S. and Asia. He also enjoys dangerous game hunting and has most recently returned from a successful buffalo hunt in Australia's Northern Territory.
In Japan, however, Bob shoots only with his Hasselblad, and his photography is well known among the local expatriate community. A graduate of Clemson University, he has been with JMRN since 1989.
Ayumi Sugahara, Senior Project Coordinator
This Kyoto native’s traditional Japanese upbringing did little to prepare her for the cultural diversity she would first experience as a high school student in Toronto, Canada. Nevertheless, Ayumi’s natural curiosity about cultures other than her own eventually led her on a quest to learn how the world’s peoples live and learn life’s values.
After studying international relations at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Ayumi returned to Canada to further her education at the University of British Columbia. Inspired by Vancouver’s multicultural environment, she initially focused her studies on the ethnographic aspects of Native American culture. Eventually, she moved on to the University of California at Berkley, where her studies took on a decidedly more political bent after meeting former U.S. president Bill Clinton.
Following graduation, the reality of “life after college” set in for Ayumi, and she eventually found herself putting her newly acquired education to work as a researcher and administrative assistant at the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu. There, she eagerly seized upon the opportunity to study first hand the traditional culture of Hawaii’s indigenous island population -- including surfing, body boarding, golf, dining on native cuisines in fine restaurants and frequent partying on the beach.
Having gone full circle in her travels, Ayumi recently returned to Japan to join our team at JMRN, where she hopes to apply her multicultural life experiences toward understanding and resolving marketing issues unique to her own native Japanese culture.
Yumiko Nishigawa, Lead Moderator
(Branded Luxury Goods, Healthcare, Financial Products)
Unlike most Japanese moderators who rarely diverge from a fixed focus group discussion script, Yumiko actively utilizes personification, collage building, brand mapping and associative imaging in her moderation techniques. She is not only well-versed in a wide range of product/service categories, but also skilled in terms of her ability to "connect" with a variety of respondent types, including homemakers, working females, middle to older-aged males and, importantly, both girls and boys of the younger generations.
A graduate of Tokyo's Gakushuin University, Yumiko has been working with JMRN for over ten years as lead focus group moderator, and has conducted well over 1,000 focus groups since becoming a full-time moderator in 1995.
Along with JMRN president Debbie Howard, she has also co-authored the ESOMAR presentation titled, "West Meets East: Considerations in Conducting Meaningful 'Global Template' Research in the Japanese Market." (please see the link)
Yukio Ohira, Lead Moderator
(IT, Website Usability, Pharmaceuticals, Financial Products)
A graduate of Tokyo's prestigious Keio University with a degree in Western history, Yukio has been working in market research for more than 20 years. In fact, he first met JMRN president Debbie Howard when they both embarked on careers in market research at McCann Erickson Hakuhodo in the early 1980s.
Driven by "a desire to understand all things," Yukio's perpetual inquisitiveness and natural analytical skills soon led him to moderate focus groups on a full-time basis. Since 1993, Yukio has conducted more than 1,000 groups and in-depth B2B interviews on a variety of topics ranging from digital technology and pharmaceuticals to carpets and Chilean wines.
Certified as an Affiliated Financial Planner (AFP) by the Japan Association for Financial Planners and an avid online trader, Yukio is especially well suited to conduct research about Japan's financial sector -- currently one of the most dynamic areas of deregulation in Japan.
Besides spending much of his free time "wheeling and dealing" online, Yukio is an avid game player and game developer. Having recently completed the development of an educational investment-related board game called Happy Investor, he has now turned his attention toward Venturo -- a board game for young adults that he hopes will both stimulate and encourage their entrepreneurial skills.
For information about employment opportunities at JMRN, please visit our Contact Page.
