Paul Hardisty — Former CEO, Adidas Japan

“The trust part is very important.”

“Change was a dirty word.”

“Anything controversial was normally me.”

“Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the

Paul Hardisty is a finance-trained executive (CPA) who began his career in Melbourne and became CFO of a group of fashion brands across Australia and New Zealand, including Davenport, with licensing and distribution experience across brands such as Calvin Klein and Carhartt.

In 1999, he joined adidas, initially slated for Indonesia just as Jakarta’s riots erupted, before ultimately leading adidas Indonesia for five years.

He then spent six months in India addressing corruption issues, before moving to South Korea for more than six years, scaling the business significantly.

Hardisty’s long-held ambition was Japan, and he relocated with his family to lead adidas Japan, where he spent around a decade and helped drive major growth.

His career arc reflects repeated adaptation across markets, cultures, and organisational scale, culminating in leading one of adidas’s most sophisticated and strategically scrutinised country operations.

Paul Hardisty’s leadership story is a study in scale, trust, and the mechanics of change inside a complex, matrixed multinational.

Having built a finance foundation in Australia and then taken on consecutive country leadership roles across Indonesia and South Korea, he arrived in Japan with a reputation for delivery and a clear-eyed sense that every market has its own “bucket of challenges”. Japan’s challenge was not drama; it was magnitude. The jump in organisational size, headcount, and global attention required him to rethink how a leader stays close to the business without drowning in it.

Hardisty’s early focus was listening: diagnosing issues, filling structural gaps, and building a strategy that could plug into global direction without losing local relevance. He frames trust as the non-negotiable foundation — not uniquely Japanese, but especially powerful in Japan when earned through consistency and “walking the talk”. This trust, once established, becomes the lubricant for cross-functional cooperation and the antidote to silent compliance.

He is candid about engagement measurement and how it can mislead headquarters. Rather than treating scores as a simplistic international comparison, he focused on patterns, feedback, and the real operational drivers behind sentiment — restructures, headcount freezes, and incentives. His most controversial move was transparency: explaining the scoring system, challenging extremely low scorers to reconsider fit, and even enabling anonymous external applications. The point was not punitive; it was cultural clarity — engagement matters, but so does the integrity of the team environment.

Hardisty also leaned into pride as a motivational engine. In sport, brand affiliation and national moments (such as major tournaments) can transform “company” into “identity”. He institutionalised that energy through internal competitions, event tickets, surprise guests, and subsidised sports clubs, making motivation tangible and social.

Where his approach becomes especially instructive is in diversity and global mobility. He resisted the idea that Japan must be led only by Japanese, or that Japanese leaders must stay in Japan. By placing non-Japanese local hires throughout the organisation and building pathways for Japanese talent to take overseas roles (including shorter three-month rotations), he pushed the company beyond passive consensus into practical internationalisation — a form of organisational nemawashi performed through staffing architecture rather than meeting-room persuasion.

On innovation, he names the core friction: uncertainty avoidance and the comfort of repeating proven routines. To counter that, he used incentives, anonymity, and then a structural breakthrough — a business development function reporting directly to him, acting as an internal project-management and strategy engine. It reduced “not my job” resistance, spread ownership, and accelerated decision flow in a ringi-sho world where approvals can slow momentum.

Ultimately, Hardisty’s Japan lesson is not that Japan is “impossible”. It is that Japan rewards leaders who operationalise trust, make change safe to attempt, and build systems that carry strategy through the middle layers to the front line.
Q&A Summary

What makes leadership in Japan unique?

Hardisty sees Japan as different in flavour, not in degree. The distinguishing feature is the strength of trust and loyalty once credibility is earned. In a consensus environment shaped by nemawashi and ringi-sho processes, alignment is powerful, but it must be cultivated deliberately and communicated repeatedly at scale.

Why do global executives struggle?

He argues many leaders struggle because they over-index on stereotypes and get “brainwashed” by received wisdom — what cannot be done, what must be done, and why Japan is supposedly exceptional. That mindset can cause unnecessary caution, poor decisions, and a failure to see the “bucket load of good things” that make Japan workable and rewarding.

Is Japan truly risk-averse?

He frames the issue less as risk and more as uncertainty avoidance. People protect reputation by staying within proven patterns, which can look like risk aversion. His antidote is to reframe experimentation as responsible learning, supported by incentives, clear ownership, and leadership cover when outcomes are not perfect.

What leadership style actually works?

His style is direct, transparent, and human. He uses openness to build trust, shares personal context to reduce distance, and creates forums where information flows both ways. He is also willing to be “controversial” when cultural drift undermines performance or engagement.

How can technology help?

While he does not position Japan as a technology problem, his operating model maps well to decision intelligence: creating a central function that gathers intel, runs meetings, manages projects, and accelerates cross-functional execution. In modern terms, leaders can use analytics, scenario planning, and even digital twins of the business to test change before rollout, reducing perceived uncertainty and speeding consensus without bypassing it.

Does language proficiency matter?

He acknowledges language as a major early hurdle and treats capability-building as an investment. Translation support, English training, and mixed-nationality teams can slow meetings, but they also expand opportunity and shift mindsets. Language is not only communication; it is a gateway to global mobility and a catalyst for new thinking.

What’s the ultimate leadership lesson?

Hardisty’s core lesson is that repeating the same actions while expecting different results is organisational self-deception. In Japan, change requires systems, structure, and trust — and leaders must design the pathways that make change executable from the top to the shop floor.
Timecoded Summary

[00:00] Greg Story welcomes Paul Hardisty, recently ex-CEO of adidas Japan, and invites him to share his background and career path.

[02:10] Hardisty outlines his finance roots in Melbourne, his CPA background, and his time as CFO of fashion brands in Australia and New Zealand. He describes his drive to work overseas and how adidas became the unexpected doorway.

[05:20] He recounts the initial Indonesia role being disrupted by Jakarta riots, then leading adidas Indonesia for five years, a short India assignment to address corruption, and more than six years building the South Korea business.

[09:40] Hardisty explains why Japan was his “dream country” professionally and personally, and how he eventually relocated with his family, spending roughly a decade in Japan before deciding it was time for a change.

[12:45] He describes the biggest leadership adjustment in Japan as scale: headcount, operational complexity, and board-level focus. He also notes language as a significant challenge when arriving.

[16:30] The discussion turns to trust. Hardisty emphasises reputation helps, but trust is earned through consistency over time, enabling genuine buy-in rather than mere compliance.

[20:10] Engagement and surveys follow. He challenges simplistic international comparisons, explains scoring realities, and shares a controversial transparency approach designed to surface truth and improve culture.

[26:00] Hardisty expands on pride and motivation: internal competitions, event tickets, surprise guests, and subsidised sports clubs that connect employees to the brand’s sporting identity.

[31:20] He details diversity and global mobility efforts: placing non-Japanese local hires throughout the organisation, developing Japanese talent for overseas roles, and trialling shorter rotations to lower barriers.

[38:00] Innovation and change become the focus. Hardisty calls out slow reaction time and resistance to change, introduces idea systems with incentives, and then describes a structural solution: a business development unit reporting to him to drive strategy and project execution.

[46:30] He explains how he kept a pulse on the organisation: quarterly compulsory meetings, mentoring, open-door access, and regular newcomer lunches where he and new hires answered the same questions.

[52:10] Asked for advice to newcomers to Japan, he warns against being “brainwashed” by myths, encourages focusing on positives, and stresses that growth is possible by picking battles, innovating, and seeking informed help.

About the Author

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.