Episode 1: “Stay at Shadow” (Part 2)
This ambitious (!) project features “Laurie,” who has known the president’s mindset well since the days of the Nakano office building, writing what should rightfully be the president’s blog. By highlighting the president’s feelings and journey, Laurie aims to convey the current state of the president and the company more vividly than the president herself could.
written by Laurie
In the President’s Office
“Let’s Have Fun!”
This phrase was the first copy written to symbolize this company, and its spirit continues to this day. However, there have been many times when I felt that this phrase itself was, in the end, about half describing her life.
In any case, Etsuko Tsugihara, President of SUNNY SIDE UP, simply cannot sit still.
She cannot turn a blind eye.
When someone is in trouble, she cannot leave them alone.
Sometimes she meddles even when no one is in trouble.
About 20 years ago, in front of a Shanghai train station, surrounded by a crowd of over 2,000 people, she stepped in to mediate a fight between Chinese people—something an ordinary Japanese tourist need not do.
However, precisely because of this personality and behavior pattern, she has encountered countless opportunities. Our work depends on whether we can sense something in a chance encounter.
(To put it in less romantic terms, business opportunities.)
Whether we want to do something with this person, or sense some possibility in the corner of a conversation someone shared with us.
Whether one possesses such sensibility and instinct often determines one’s destiny.
Thinking about it this way, turning such coincidences and encounters into reality may be what has shaped the history of SUNNY SIDE UP.
She cannot turn a blind eye.
When someone is in trouble, she cannot leave them alone.
The decision to enter the sports management business was triggered by nothing more than that. It was also significant that among such encounters were true “darlings of the era.”
Yes, one more thing: Etsuko Tsugihara has remarkably “good fortune.”
Of course, the state of having “good fortune” is the result of the athletes’ own efforts,
as well as the wisdom of the team staff who struggled to elevate the athletes’ value to the highest level.
It is precisely because of this that we can enjoy the legend of “good fortune.”
We use our ingenuity to maximize the value of products, companies, and individuals, shining a spotlight on things that can never be seen or noticed from within, and working behind the scenes in every possible way.
When our partner clients move forward under the strategies we have built together, they gain the spotlight, move public opinion, and generate praise and empathy.
The DNA that finds joy in witnessing such moments, along with the spirit of Stay at Shadow, seems to have permeated SUNNY SIDE UP to this day.
Now, I’ve deliberately wrapped this up nicely for the first installment, but
thinking about it, her good fortune is often paired with something like finding unidentified human remains on the way home from striking gold—things better left unfound.
If it were just her own commotion, that would be fine, but she usually cheerfully involves those around her, and phone calls from her on holidays or in the middle of the night typically signal the beginning of such “fun commotions.”
If circumstances permit, I would like to share such episodes on another occasion.
Well then,
Please look forward to the next “President’s Blog Not Written by the President”!
