The curtain has just been raised. We recognize that currently (as of October 2022), KADOKAWA is at the phase where it has taken its first steps as a global company. Every year we have been increasing our percentage of overseas sales. However, that is just the first chapter of our journey. We are in the transitional period of achieving the change to becoming a global company. Accordingly, it could be said that the global human resources that KADOKAWA needs are persons that can explore new frontiers and clear the path to the world together with us.

What exactly do we mean by global human resources? Of course, staff are more reliable the more global skills they have. These skills include the skill to use various languages in business, practical business experience worldwide and international, specialized knowledge, and sensibility that enables you to exactly grasp and flexibly deal with the differences in cultures and customs, as well as the features, of various parts of the world. Yet we do not think that is all that global human resources need. For us, the most important thing is whether they can share with colleagues inside and outside our company their conviction and pride in making the people of the world happy with stories and appealing characters that are included in the content.

To everyone who enjoys jumping into unknown challenges and unexplored fields: we would like you to join us in providing great joy and emotionally moving experiences to our fans and clients throughout the world with KADOKAWA’s unique products and business models.

The environments in which global human resources at KADOKAWA can work are largely divided into 2 types. These are domestic tasks and overseas tasks.

1. [Domestic work] – Accelerating global business in the domestic Japanese market

The first pattern is where global staff engage in tasks at KADOKAWA in Japan and other domestic Group companies. In these jobs, global staff carry out a variety of global tasks with Japan as the focus, while staying in Japan. These include being involved in content creation that originated in Japan with the premise of global business expansion, expanding the rights (licenses) to created anime, manga, and light novels to our overseas business partners, importing overseas content and planning to sell them as Japanese language products, drafting and implementing corporate plans for local corporations overseas, and dealing with international work at various corporate departments, including overseas legal affairs, overseas taxes, and global auditing. For these tasks, we are not concerned with nationality or age. However, staff need above a certain level of Japanese language skill for working in an environment with Japanese as the common language.

2. [Overseas work] – Accelerating global business at overseas corporations

Another pattern is engaging in work at KADOKAWA Group local corporations overseas that exist in each area of the world. Of course, these local corporations overseas hire staff directly, but staff who enter KADOKAWA in Japan are also dispatched to these local corporations as assigned employees. Currently, generalist staff who can handle all aspects of management are mainly selected to be assigned employees. However, our future policy is to increase the dispatches of people at global specialized positions who combine professional skills, such as manga editing, multimedia marketing, and financial accounting, with global skills. In particular, we are looking to newly employ more workers who wish to engage in content planning work while staying overseas. If this interests you, please do not hesitate to apply.

1. The process differs depending on whether the staff member is engaged in 1. [Domestic work] or 2. [Overseas work]

If the premise is domestic work, the positions recruited for are directly assigned, and staff engage in specialized tasks. For a long time, they continue with the same work as when they joined the company, and there are both cases where people advance in the same department as when they joined KADOKAWA, and cases where staff advance while doing career rotations in the company and expanding the breadth of their work. This is comprehensively judged while considering the staff member’s direction and the status of the department to which they belong. In both cases, dual positions in departments are actively promoted, particularly for global related tasks, and policies for increasing mobility in skill and post selection are strengthened, so we will proceed with optimizing a work definition that suits the growth plan of each staff member.

If the premise is overseas work, staff engage in tasks managing their assumed work field or associated domestic work after joining the Company to spend the preparation period for their assignment of about 6 months to 1 year. In this period, staff grasp a series of tasks and build relationships with company staff. Then they leave for their overseas posts. The assignment period is considered to be 1 period of time for mainly 4-5 years. However, it can be more or less depending on the management situation of the assigned company or the will of the staff member. After the assignment period is over, there are cases where the staff member works at Tokyo headquarters in a position related to overseas business or is reassigned to another overseas post later. However, the aim in the future is to further widen career mobility and career options.