I have recently been appointed CHRO. Throughout my career I have served as CHRO at several global companies, leading the human capital strategies that drive business growth. I understand this appointment reflects the NISSIN FOODS Group’s need for global talent who can drive the growth of the people who will bring our vision of becoming an EARTH FOOD CREATOR to life, together with the mechanisms to support these people. I believe that my expertise can contribute here.

Honored as I was by the offer, I at first felt some hesitation because the food industry was unfamiliar territory to me. Yet as I came to know it as an industry that identifies closely with the consumer and where employees experience the meaning of their work by encountering the company’s own products in daily life, that hesitation faded. Above all, within a business model that turns changes at dining tables around the world into a driver of growth, employee growth translates directly into corporate value. I felt this was a place where I, as an HR professional, could truly make a difference.

Three reasons ultimately led to my decision. First, through dialogue with the management team, I sensed a strong determination to focus even more on people, which aligned with my own belief that strong individuals build a strong organization. Second, I felt a warm and sincere character in every employee and became convinced that, with these people, we could achieve transformation. Third, I saw limitless potential in a culture rooted in our founder’s spirit and in the future of a business expanding across the world.

Developing people takes time before results become visible. That is precisely why engaging with each employee’s growth from a long-term perspective is the mission of a CHRO. I feel the weight of that responsibility and, with it, an exciting sense of purpose.

In the six months since I joined the NISSIN FOODS Group^*, I have felt the fine character of our employees in many situations. Skills and knowledge can be acquired later, but the disposition and sensitivity that lie beneath such character are not easily cultivated, and I regard this character as a great asset of our Group.

I believe this character stems from the founder’s spirit having taken root as our DNA. The four Missions begin with Peace will come to the world when there is enough food (Shoku-soku Se-hei). Together with the NISSIN 10 Rules, the philosophy expresses the founder’s spirit in clear, powerful messages that connect to the daily actions of our employees.

At the same time, we face challenges ahead: building mechanisms to instill this DNA in employees across the world; securing both the quantity and the quality of talent to match our pace of growth; fully developing HR measures suited to globalization; and establishing structures that keep the organization functional and competitive even amid rising uncertainty, such as geopolitical risk. These are the priorities I will address as CHRO.

*Ms. Hamase joined the NISSIN FOODS Group on October 1, 2025

Traditionally, HR may have carried a strong image of “defense,” building systems and enforcing rules. Going forward, I believe the “offense” matters just as much. How can we draw out the full potential of each employee and multiply that potential within teams to drive organizational growth?

I describe this way of practicing HR as sitting in the driver’s seat. In the past, HR mainly supported the field from the passenger seat or provided backup from the back seat. Today, HR should sit in the driver’s seat, from the same perspective as management and frontline employees, showing the direction to take and moving forward. This, in my view, is what HR should be.

This does not, of course, mean HR acts on its own. Holding the wheel from the same perspective as management and the business front lines, HR serves as the guide that draws out the potential of employees and the organization. To do so, we must go beyond expertise in HR systems and regulations. Through an understanding of and involvement in the business and management, we must integrate management strategy with human capital strategy.

I also hold to a policy of not denying the past. Rather than wiping the slate clean of the many HR systems and measures our Group has built up, we should carefully discern what is working and what is not, and then evolve these systems into more effective forms—dynamically and with a consistent story. That stance, I believe, is what leads to true reform.

Integration of Management Strategy and Human Capital Strategy

As we advance institutional reform, we must be careful that measures do not become ends in themselves, causing us to lose sight of their original purpose. As CHRO of the NISSIN FOODS Group, my first task is to prevent this shortcoming, clarifying for each measure what the reform is for and how the measures connect to one another. In this way, we will convey the information to employees as an easy-to-understand story. In other words, it is essential to make initiatives more concrete and clear so that every employee can understand them as something personally relevant.

As the organization expands globally, it becomes harder to keep every team and every employee in view. We will therefore make active use of digital transformation (DX) and AI to make more rational decisions and speedier execution based on detailed data, achieving finely tuned organizational management.

To drive this reform, we have formulated a three-year Medium-Term Human Capital Strategy starting in FY 3/2027. The strategy is built on three themes: (1) developing a management structure that supports our growth strategy; (2) upgrading our human capital management system to support global management; and (3) strengthening our domestic business organization and human capital base further. By improving the organizational capability and internal environment that underpin these themes, we will strengthen our human capital base and advance our growth strategy.

We have also reviewed our HR-related KPIs. Here too, as with our systems and measures, we place importance not on abolishing existing KPIs, but on raising their precision. For key posts, for example, we will measure the fill rate not only overall but post by post, bringing visibility to our human capital situation, including vacancies and issues. Through this development of KPIs, our goal over three years is to build a rich talent pool for key positions and create a clear overall view of our talent portfolio to fill key positions when needed.

Achieving these goals requires a solid execution structure. The first element is building a cross-organizational structure on a global basis. Because HR work inevitably demands responses to immediate, unexpected matters, reform initiatives tend to be pushed back. We are developing an execution structure to achieve these initiatives. The second element is building a structure that does not stop at siloed, function-by-function operation, but advances priority themes across the whole of HR from an overall perspective. Each measure is staffed by members with the necessary functions and expertise participating across organizational lines, and we are advancing reform with the entire HR function conscious of carrying out the Group-wide human capital strategy. The third is strengthening the HRBP (HR Business Partner) function. By strengthening the HRBP structure in Japan and overseas, we will further link HR strategy with business strategy and support the growth of each business and the maximization of organizational capability.

An indispensable theme in considering our Group’s HR systems is building an organization that functions globally. My basic approach is not to think in terms of a Japan-versus-overseas confrontation, but to run the team as one, centered on shared values. I call this Global One.

To share and demonstrate globally the strengths our Group has cultivated—such as our founder’s spirit and intellectual property—the traditional approach of sending people and information from Japan to the rest of the world will remain necessary. However, to become a group on par with the world’s top food manufacturers, we must heighten not only the centripetal force emanating from Japan, but also the centrifugal force that employees active around the world exercise autonomously. While cherishing our shared Group values, we must respect the characteristics and cultures of each region and pursue the optimal product lineups and sales approaches for each, demonstrating centripetal and centrifugal forces in good balance.

With this in mind, we will instill our Mission, Vision, and Value (MVV)—beginning with our founding principles as a common language for all employees in Japan and overseas. At the same time, we will promote optimal placement and development from a Global One perspective, aiming to realize an organization with a true sense of unity.

In pursuing our development as a global company, discussions of diversity tend to focus on surface-level attributes such as nationality, gender, and age. What I consider essential, however, is building a culture and climate in which people who act well and make good proposals are fairly recognized regardless of attributes—and this climate should connect directly to organizational growth.

What I emphasize is not surface-level diversity of attributes but deeper diversity: the values and sensibilities cultivated through experience. Precisely because our business—food—is so closely tied to culture and daily life, securing talent with diverse backgrounds is a source of deeper consumer understanding and of innovation. Moreover, for such diversity to truly function, an organizational culture is essential—one with the psychological safety that lets employees state their views with confidence regardless of attributes, and the fairness that guarantees this safety. This, I believe, is the essence of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) our Group should pursue.

We do, of course, set numerical targets as objective indicators. But if achieving the numbers becomes the goal itself, we risk the contradiction of moving the figures while the organization’s reality stays the same. In raising the ratio of female managers, for example, a target carries meaning only when backed by our own logic—that, at a minimum, approaching a gender ratio internally that mirrors the market for our products strengthens our ability to understand consumers and thus drives the business. We design measures by working backward from the purpose, and the numbers follow as a result. Creating such mechanisms is, I believe, what matters.

In the HR strategy described above as well, DE&I is not an end in itself but is positioned as a necessity for realizing our vision. We advance each measure from the logic that enhancing DE&I raises employee engagement and, as a result, enables a Global One organization.

It would be wonderful if the phrase, “The NISSIN FOODS Group is powered by its people,” held true in both name and substance. I want to realize the best and strongest organization—one in which each employee exercises their strengths while the team creates the greatest value together. Nothing would bring me greater joy as an HR professional than for our Group to become an organization that employees themselves take pride in, and that stakeholders, such as customers, business partners, and shareholders and investors, recognize for having people who are truly different.

Human capital is not a theme that shows results in the short term. Yet over a medium- to long-term span of five or ten years, it is nothing less than the invisible asset that supports our Group’s sustainable growth. We will treat the three-year Medium-Term Human Capital Strategy starting in FY 3/2027 as the first stage and, building on its results, develop it into the next stage. Guided by the conviction that people are everything, we will make the NISSIN FOODS Group a stronger and more resilient company through the development of our people and our organization. I would be grateful for your continued support from a medium- to long-term perspective.