I also felt like many people (including myself) stopped worrying about making mistakes or getting everything perfect because the COVID-19 crisis gave us no choice but to change. A good example for me was the accelerated adoption of telemedicine — healthcare is normally a highly regulated space, but during the crisis, hospitals were extremely packed and specialists and politicians had no other alternatives than to try something new.

Working from home was another example, showing how agile we can be and how quickly we can change under a forced circumstance. Commuting in traffic, staying in the office for hours and commuting back in traffic again, was the only option for us. I had believed that is the way a good team should collaborate and deliver great outcomes. But this year, we quickly adhered to all of the COVID rules and guidelines, everyone stopped commuting and worked from home, while achieving great results such as launching four new MVPs, hiring 26 new talents, supporting more than 20 new projects and helping a lot of new Mitsui organizations start to build new ventures! Congratulations and thanks again to all of our Moon Mates and Mitsui colleagues who worked so hard “remotely” to make these accomplishments happen! Hooray!

The biggest lesson I have learned from these experiences is just how easily we can get stuck inside a cubicle, manufactured by ourselves as humans. This cubicle, unconsciously created, is a barrier that may be limiting our passion to challenge and the freedom to imagine outside of the box. I wish we had not experienced the tragedies brought on by this pandemic in 2020, but as with many crises, humans rise to the challenge. We change and we adapt.

I hope that Moon continues to push for human-centered change and innovation for Mitsui, Japan and beyond, and continue to unlock people’s creative potential.

Do we think this mission will be easy? No. Do we think we can accomplish this vision? We’re not sure — and that’s okay. One thing we know for sure is that it’s going to be a lot of fun trying.