Atsushi Yoshikawa

Ex-Global COO, Nomura Holdings (Wholesale Division)  

MBA, Class of 1984  

Joining Nomura Holdings, a Japanese financial services company, in 1978 as a wide-eyed Economics graduate was in fact a road less travelled – when everybody was gunning for the banks, or the trading companies, or the civil service, Atsushi Yoshikawa chose not to compete with the rest.  

He believed that choosing a workplace that was less competitive would present him with more opportunities or responsibilities that would allow him to learn faster.  His excellent foresight led him to receive a sponsorship by Nomura to study for an MBA at NUS Business School, and subsequently work at multiple overseas locations like Singapore, Hong Kong, and New York, as well as run a few different arms of Nomura Holdings like Nomura Securities International, Nomura Asset Management, and Nomura Real Estate Holdings.  

Reminded about his earlier years, Atsushi only speaks well of his time at NUS Business School.  

“It was an eye-opening experience that helped to widen my perspective about Southeast Asia and the business world,” says Atsushi. “So many people around me tended to feel intimidated when they went overseas to work, like at Wall Street. But my experience in Singapore and other Asian countries boosted my confidence to be able to adapt to different global situations and manage people from all over the world.”  

One of Atsushi’s biggest strengths is his communication skills, the part of his job that he finds most important to manage, and whose learnings he attributes to Professor Joseph Putti from NUS Business School. “He was very instrumental. I still remember one remark he made, that communication is an exchange of understandings – plural. That really helped me to understand that we are all unique, but we are all people, and we just need to take time one by one to communicate properly with each other.”  

Even when the company or markets were facing a crisis, Atsushi stood out as a leader by making sure he remained calm and executed orders in a clear way. This, he says, prevents him from making unnecessary mistakes.  

“There were many tough times like Black Monday in 1987 and the Lehman Shock in 2008, that attacked the financial markets and tested the company. But, thinking back, these were really interesting times because they gave me the opportunity to make real changes in the organisation. When you make the right decisions in the toughest of situations, you will get rewarded in a few years.”   

After 45 years of working his way to the top at Nomura, Atsushi is finally enjoying a well-deserved retirement.