Episode #281: Shu Kimura — Founder, Boulangerie Maison Kayser Japan

“The purpose of my business is not only bake and sell, because we are introducing… culture or food habits of France to the Japanese people.”

“Japanese people don't buy baguettes because they don't know how to eat it.”

“After twenty shops, I needed to change my mentality to be the new type leaders.”

“Why is communications.”

“Responsibility of the life of the workers.”

Brief Bio

Shu Kimura is the founder of Boulangerie Maison Kayser Japan and a fellow Rotarian. Born into the Kimura family, whose ancestors helped introduce bread-making techniques to Japan via Nagasaki (Dejima) in the 1600s, he chose to build a separate path rather than continue the established family business. He studied law at university, then worked in insurance for six years in market development before deciding to become a baker. He trained in the United States in Kansas, studying wheat science and fermentation chemistry, then worked as a baker at Amy’s Bread in New York City. He later went to France to train closely with artisanal baker Eric Kayser living near his home as a private trainee before being invited to become a business partner to bring the brand concept to Japan. Kimura built the company in 2000 and opened the first Japan store in Takanawa in 2001. Over time, he grew the business to dozens of locations across Japan, leading hundreds of employees while navigating Japan’s distinctive customer habits, service expectations, and people-management realities.

Narrative Summary

Shu Kimura’s leadership story is a case study in translating a food culture—not merely selling a product—into a market with different habits, assumptions, and decision styles. He entered baking after a first career in insurance, then rebuilt himself through technical study of fermentation and wheat science in Kansas, practical craft in New York, and high-intensity apprenticeship in France. That blend of science, craft, and commercial pragmatism shaped how he approached Japan: with conviction about quality, but equal focus on “how to sell” in a society where bread is often treated as a one-hand snack rather than part of a shared table.

His early strategic insight was not that Japanese consumers disliked baguettes, but that many simply lacked a usage framework. That is a leadership lesson in market education: changing behaviour requires storytelling, context, and repeated micro-demonstrations. Sampling hundreds of baguette slices daily, Kimura used seasonal moments—Christmas and New Year’s gatherings—to help customers discover bread as a centrepiece of hospitality. The result was not incremental improvement but a demand inflection point: the product did not change; the meaning did.

As the company expanded, Kimura’s definition of leadership evolved in stages: hands-on labour at one to three shops, charisma and founder-driven momentum from four to twenty, and then a deliberate shift from “activist and baker” to architect of systems, accountability, and culture. This transition mirrors a broader Japan leadership truth: scale forces leaders to move from doing to enabling, from individual mastery to organisational capability.

Kimura also highlights a practical contrast between European-style top-down authority and Japan’s preference for shared understanding and bottom-up execution. Rather than merely issuing task-level directives, he argues that people in Japan need the whole picture first—the total view—before work can be broken into puzzle pieces. This aligns with consensus dynamics such as nemawashi (pre-alignment) and ringi-sho (circulating approval), where clarity of purpose and social alignment can matter as much as speed. In an uncertainty-avoidant environment, trust is built through repeated communication: purpose, targets, role clarity, and recognition systems that show personal growth.

Technology appears in his leadership thinking not as novelty, but as operational resilience—sales planning, ordering, loss control, and cross-application data transfer. The strategic point is decision intelligence: reducing waste and stabilising performance through better signals, with the potential to build digital-twin-like visibility into demand, production, and staffing over time. Yet Kimura remains grounded: culture, education, and human motivation are the levers that keep quality consistent across many locations.

Q&A Summary

What makes leadership in Japan unique?

Kimura frames Japan as a context where leadership effectiveness depends on shared understanding, not merely authority. He contrasts European “boss is boss” top-down control with a Japanese style that works better when leaders explain the total view of the company first, then break it down into actionable pieces. In practice, that means investing heavily in communication of purpose, targets, and role boundaries—an approach consistent with consensus-building patterns such as nemawashi and ringi-sho.

Why do global executives struggle?

He implies the struggle often comes from applying familiar command-and-control habits in a market that expects alignment, context, and relationship-based coherence. Leaders who only provide “do this, do that” instructions may fail to create commitment. Without the larger narrative—why the work matters—people drift, and brand consistency erodes across locations.

Is Japan truly risk-averse?

Kimura’s experience suggests “risk-averse” is often a shorthand for “uncertainty-avoidant.” The baguette challenge was not fear of trying something new; it was uncertainty about how to use it. When he taught customers how to eat baguette and anchored it to family occasions, behaviour changed rapidly. The leadership implication: reduce uncertainty with education, examples, and social proof.

What leadership style actually works?

He describes a staged evolution: doer-leader at small scale, charismatic founder at mid-scale, then system-builder after twenty shops. The effective style becomes one of delegation with accountability—pushing responsibility down to store and area leaders while reinforcing philosophy and standards through education. Trust is sustained through fair, frequently improved HR systems that recognise growth and provide future pathways.

How can technology help?

Kimura points to connected planning for orders and sales, and systems to manage loss control and operational accuracy. He also discusses using systems to support smaller independent bakeries with HR and payroll calculations. This is technology as operational leverage—moving toward decision intelligence and potentially digital twin capabilities—while acknowledging cost constraints and the reality that some AI applications may still be premature.

Does language proficiency matter?

He treats language as a tool rather than the essence: interpretation can solve comprehension, but the substance of what a leader communicates is decisive. In other words, clarity of message, philosophy, and intent carries more weight than linguistic perfection.

What’s the ultimate leadership lesson?

For Kimura, leadership is responsibility for people’s livelihoods: failure affects hundreds of jobs, not just the founder’s personal assets. That sense of stewardship drives his focus on communication, education, continuous system improvement, and the creation of a “happy life with bread” shared by bakers, shop staff, and customers alike.

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across all leadership, communication, sales, and presentation programs, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have also been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).

In addition to his books, Greg publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, offering practical insights on leadership, communication, and Japanese business culture. He is also the host of six weekly podcasts, including The Leadership Japan Series, The Sales Japan Series, The Presentations Japan Series, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews. On YouTube, he produces three weekly shows — The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan’s Top Business Interviews — which have become leading resources for executives seeking strategies for success in Japan.