Atsushi Kitamura manages a myriad of challenging responsibilities as CFO of global life science company Astellas Pharma, namely balancing global complexity with strategic clarity. Kitamura has honed his leadership skills through a career spanning industries from food services to consumer goods to car electronics—and by sticking to his principles.
“I always set my principle, which is Genba, Genjitsu and Genbutsu. It’s in Japanese, but translated into English, [it means] go to the real battlefield, reality, and focus on the real issues, speak to the real people, don’t just sit down in a meeting in the office…spend time in the real places,” Kitamura says. “We can learn from those kinds of realities.” In a wide-ranging interview, he shares his career journey, lessons learned along the way and why aspiring finance leaders should lean in to fear.
Listen by clicking below. The Q&A, lightly trimmed and edited for clarity, follows.
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Welcome back, everyone. We have a great episode. I’m really excited about it. My guest is Atsushi Kitamura. He is the CFO of Astellas. Astellas is a global life science company committed to turning innovative science into value for patients with a focus on pioneering new healthcare solutions for diseases with high unmet medical needs. Welcome to the show.
Thank you very much, Jack, for having me here. It is my honor to be here. I’m very much looking forward to having a great discussion with you.
I’m looking forward to it. As I mentioned, this is the first time we’ve had a guest from Japan on our show. Truly an honor for me, and I know for my readers as well. I did my best describing Astellas, but I was hoping maybe you could give a more complete view for my readers.
Thank you very much, Jack. I think you explained our company, Astellas, very well. Just maybe I’ll add a few words. We provide transformative therapies in disease areas that include oncology, urology, ophthalmology, immunology and women’s health, and the Japanese company headquarters is in Tokyo. We manage about 70 countries across the world business for the pharmaceutical. We are a global company, led by Japanese headquarters.
We have about 14,000 to 15,000 employees across the world. We are not a gigantic firm, but we are not small. We are a so-called mid-size pharmaceutical company that will give us more flexibility, agility to adapt to whatever we need for the science industry. As CFO, I’m responsible for growth for both top line and bottom line so that we can really create long-term enterprise value.
That’s wonderful. When I was reading the description of the company, it’s like very few people are fortunate enough, as you are, to work for a company that truly makes the world a better place to be. Congratulations to you and thanks to you for being in a company like that. It’s just a wonderful thing that there are companies like yours out there to take care of our health.
Thank you very much. That means a lot to us.
Indeed. We’ll definitely return to that, but I want to talk a little about your own background before we get into it. Can you tell us, obviously, you’re from Japan, but where did you grow up?
I grew up in Tokyo. I spent ten years in the Kansai area. That is where we have Tokyo in the east and Osaka in the west in Japan. I spent ten years in the west in Osaka as well.
I know you went to school at the University of Tokyo, and I believe you studied economics.
Yes, that’s what I study, economics, but I spend most of my time in sports. I played lacrosse in college, and I really enjoyed that.
What sports did you participate in?
Lacrosse.
I wasn’t aware that lacrosse was popular in Japan. That’s good. Did you play at the collegiate level then?
Yes.
It’s interesting because when we started the show, I realized after like 10 episodes, almost every CFO played sports in college. I realized everyone I talked to is a better athlete than me. Not that I’m a good athlete, but not bad either. Do you find that playing a team sport translates to business effectively? I know a lot of Americans believe that it does. It helps with teamwork and things.
Absolutely, Jack. I believe that there are a lot of things we can leverage from the experience in sports to the business. Of course, games are important. We have four quarters to win the game, but before the game, we need to practice. We need to make a team and we need to have a strategy, and we need to engage our teammates. It’s pretty much common in the business field as well.
That would explain why so many successful executives were former athletes, I suppose. You studied economics in undergrad, and is that a common field of study for somebody that will eventually become a chief financial officer? I would think it would be very critical today.
I think so, but when I was a university student age, especially in Japan, it’s different between what we study in college, university and what we would do in the company after joining a new company as a new graduate. In Japan, in many cases, it’s more like training the people in general skills. Joining the company as a sales representative and doing the marketing, doing finance, and doing HR type things. That is more like making progress in a typical Japanese company when I was young. I joined Procter & Gamble, which is an American consumer global company, they have headquarters in Kobe across the Osaka, which hires people by function. I chose finance and accounting as my choice to join P&G. Since then, my journey in finance started.
That sounds like a great start to your career. What was it that you thought, “This is the right company for me to start my career?”
I’m impressed by the people there. Of course, I met many people in a company as well, but very much impressed by the people in Procter & Gamble because they’re very tough on the performers, but at the same time, taking care of people because there’s a very strong philosophy in Procter & Gamble, people first. We need to right team and train right people so that we can perform better. I think that is the thing we follow in Procter & Gamble. Also that it’s a global company. If I joined there, maybe I would have a chance to go around world. I think that is the motivation for me to join P&G at that time.
That makes a lot of sense. When you look back upon your experience at P&G, were there some leaders that stuck out to you who perhaps served as mentors to you, whether people, or maybe you just learned valuable business and life lessons from?
Of course, there are many people who influenced me a lot, especially when I was a junior, and we were eager to learn from others. I still remember one meeting with the group CFO at that time. There was a meeting with them, the leadership team and the global headquarters management team that visited Japan maybe once a year or twice a year at that time.
I was there to join the meeting, and I asked a question to the CFO, that I had a conflict. At that time, I was working for the cosmetic business, and there was the skincare business. Now, high prices, but trying to expand the user profile from the relatively senior person to the junior and young generations. They started aggressive advertisement, including TV, to increase the consumer profile.
Now, at that time, I was struggling with the layout for the short-term view, it’s better to do some promotion, hard promotions, to really quickly expand the user profile. Long term, that may increase the impact on the brand equity. That may hurt the loyal users if we start promoting those brands a lot. It’s long-term, mid-term dilemmas.
I clearly remember what he told me, “Atsushi, welcome. That is the fun part of doing business. You need to make sure, you need to make a judgment and you need to make decisions. It’s not black and white, but you need to make decisions. Seeing all those risks, all profiles and that is a fun part of business.” I really like to remember that word.
That sounds like a mentor who is, great mentor to have and one who’s made a lasting impact on you. You had a very lengthy career at P&G. Were you there over 20 years, I believe?
Actually, P&G 14 years. When P&G acquired Gillette, Gillette was a great company, I moved to Gillette, Japan, Korea, to integrate into P&G. I visited Boston and also the Cronbach in their brand business. It’s a great company. I really saw a straight path, a very simple business structure that really created value for the market. I really respect that one.
It was a little shocking as a Bostonian when Gillette was acquired because you grew up there, so many of your friends worked there over the years. It’s like, “What? They were acquired? How’d that even happen?” You’re right. It was definitely a great company. One thing I really found admirable about your resume is that you’ve been successful in a wide variety of industries.
You worked at P&G with consumer goods. You’ve worked in food services, car electronics and now you’re in the pharmaceutical industry. Finance may be universal, but business is not. How did it come about that you changed industries? I think more importantly, how did you grasp the business quickly as a financial leader? It’s not like you’re in a backend job. You’re on the front lines as an executive.
Thank you very much for asking that question, tough questions. The first thing that I didn’t make choices to choose which company I want to join because of the industry, but to see how I can contribute to the company’s success, and how I can learn from those experiences. That is important in addition to making criteria for me to join a company. That is really just a coincidence that I do have several industry experiences, as you said.
Having said that, there are a lot of common things in finance. At the end of the day, we need to sell more and we need to save more to deliver more. I think it’s a really simple structure in finance, and also, the important part of finance is integrity. We need to make sure we are comprehensive, we have the right governance and we have the right procedures.
Value creation and the governance type things are too important in the aspect of finance, and that is common for all companies, all industries. Now, you are right, it’s true, it’s different, and the industry has different parameters, key drivers. We need to learn relatively quickly. One of my principles is making sure I don’t pretend I know everything. Ask the right question to the right people. If we can make a good relationship, they can tell me whatever I need to know.
I always set my principle, which is the Genba Genjitsu and Genbutsu. It’s in Japanese word, but in translating into English, go to the real battlefield, reality, and focus on the real issues, speak to the real people, not just sit down in a meeting in the office and not on the PC, looking at the PC or whatever, spend time in the real places. We can learn from those kinds of realities. Once we got that reality, it’s actually easy to pick up how I can contribute to that business.
I want to be sure I got those words right. It was Genba, it was Genbutsu, and Genjitsu?
Yes.
I apologize for mispronunciations.
No, it’s perfect.
I would love you to talk to a lot of my younger members because I tell people that to make the transition from going from being an accountant to being a chief financial officer, I encourage them there’s an expression, walk the floor, which means get out of your office, talk to people in the company who work in accounting and finance, talk to your customers, talk to people who build the product and really get an understanding of the business.
I like what you said better. It sounds a lot better coming from you and in the Japanese language. I’m going to try to apply some of these principles. I think that’s fantastic. I’d love to, unless you want to build upon that, I’d love to ask you a little about Astellas, and it’s a wonderful company. Maybe I know the reason, but perhaps you could share with us how the position became available and what attracted you to the role.
The status is really, as I said, to operate and support the patient all over the world. We are a Japanese company where the Japan and business portion is less than 20 percent. Eighty percent of the revenue of the business is coming from outside Japan. We are very much globalized. We do have CEO Naoki Okamura. He’s Japanese. His management team, including myself, about nine, 10 CEO, so-called.
We do have a non-Japanese CEO as well. It’s pretty much global operations. Now, Astellas makes several transformations because in the pharmaceutical industry, because of the loss of exclusivity of our patent IP, every 10, 15, 20 years, the product will be changed based on the product’s medicine change, sometimes that requires a different way to the business, going to the market.
I think I see this industry from the outside, before I joined this company, but every decade or two decades, companies need to do the transformations. As Terence said, we are global and operating in our company, but we need to go to the next level because our future pipeline is promising, which may differ from our current portfolios. We really need to make sure we have good global operational foundations. That’s why Astellas is looking for a CFO who can help and lead that transformation.
That makes sense. That’s great. It sounds like you are very well suited to the role. You mentioned you’re the CEO. I’m curious because in the United States, the CFO position has evolved to the point now that CEOs and CFOs are considered a very strategic and perhaps the most important partnership within a company. I’m wondering how you’ve built that type of relationship with Okamura-san at your company. You might be his closest advisor within the company.
Thank you very much for asking that question. I call Naoki Okamura, our CEO. He called me Atsushi, and I call him Naoki even in a Japanese context. It’s that relations. Naoki is the CEO now, but there’s some time he also covers CFO. He has a finance background. He has financial knowledge, but he is very good at dedicating me to the work. That is, he trusts me, and of course, the big theme, I agree with him, but for the execution, earlier, they delegated to me a lot. Also, I see that the CEO, CFO combination is important, but I always think about how I can help as a CFO to the CEO. Just my personal thought, but what is the difference between a CEO and a CFO? Any ideas?
To be the biggest difference, there are so many of them, but I think the biggest one is CEO is the first person everybody looks to for strategy and leadership. The CFO looks to the CEO, but the CEO to me looks to the CFO. When they’re not sure what’s going on, the first person they turn to is you. Is that right? Obviously, there are a lot of different distinctions, but that’s how I look at it.
That is very helpful, Jack. My personal thought is the difference between CEO and CFO is E and F. Pretty simple. E has three vertical lines. F has only two vertical lines.
Nice.
Actually, the horizontal line. Now, the center of the horizontal line is the horizon. CFO covers the horizon and above. While the CEO needs to cover both above, below the horizon, and also under. What does it mean? The CEO needs to see the world, which is invisible for most of us, but needs to make judgments, needs to make a strategy, needs to make a lot of things based on what they can see, but others cannot see. Those factors, that is, a long-term strategy, whatever. CFO is above the horizon.
That means making those thinking visible, executable, feasible, also doable. CFO’s job is relatively easy because the CEO defines that difficult part and makes it pragmatic, makes it feasible. Sometimes need to bring the cash capital to do that. Sometimes we need to do the right setup, organizational setup and build a breakdown capability required. That’s relatively the CFO’s job. CFO is again, the horizon and the path. That concept works for me well, not only in the synapses, but also in other places.
I love that answer. Jess will tell you after we’re off. I don’t say very often that I love that answer, but I think that’s just fantastic how you describe that. I never thought of it as being broken down that way. Thank you for that. I want to talk a little bit about the pharmaceutical industry.
It’s one that I cannot say I’m intimately familiar with. I’d be curious what some of the biggest challenges, if your company in particular, of course, but the industry in general, is dealing with right now in we’re recording in May of 2025, a lot of global turmoil is going on. What are the challenges you’re facing? More importantly, how are you preparing for them? What are you doing to face them?
We do have some uniqueness as a pharmaceutical industry as it is, and also current situations, a bit shaky situation, not only in pharma, but also global, the entire economic things, one by one. For the pharma industry, we are the science industry, and that requires longer lead time, also less probability of success. One person said, the success rate probability of creating new medicine is one out of 10,000 or 20,000, 10,000 out of 10,000, that probability.
In many cases often it’s natural for us to fail, but we cannot fail at everything because at least we need to have one or two successes. That is a data industry, and to qualify for that entire process requires 10 years, for example. Now it’s a very unique dynamics because, as I said, most of our actions will be failed. I never experienced this probability of success in other industry. We cannot afford this probability of success in the food service business or an even profit and gain for consumers and good product companies. No. That is a very different dynamic.
We need to respect the value creation flow because, at the end of the day, that will be a source of growth in the future. Now, the current environment, global environment is really shaky, I would say. The interest rate affects other tariffs, political things. It’s relatively unstable compared to our ability, our lead time. We may have less adaptability to those kinds of change, at least for a short time, compared to other industries.
Now, for a short time, what we need to do is, anyway, we need to focus on what we can control. If there are uncertainties or there’s ambiguity increases, we need to prepare. We have the right basic operation in a group shape. I need to create more buffer for the flexibility to doing business, yet dealing with those uncertainties. We need to prepare well, maybe with some scenarios. If scenario A happens, what will be your action?
If Scenario B happens, what will be the actions? We need to do those scenario planning ahead. That is what we are doing now. In the short term, mid-term is different. What will be happening in a ten-year time horizon? What we are working for science creation is maybe coming 5, to 10-year time horizon. We need to make a study and make some choices that may impact our future. Maybe that will be the difference between CEO and CFO, what? That’s what we need to do now. Multiple things are happening. Again, as I said, a short time, mid to long-term, actions are a bit different.
That makes a lot of sense. I’m curious, given that you worked in so many industries that are different, and not that they’re not going through their challenges, but I’m wondering if maybe working in four different sets of industries or four different types of leadership teams. Did that broaden your mind to possibilities and different ways to solve problems a little bit?
Yes, because I can bring some diversified experiences as well as thinking. Also, my experience in the food service business and the car electronics city business is more like a business talent because I work with private equity in a fund to turn on those. Relatively, cashflow sessions and make quick wins, and also followed by the continuous win or midterm that we need to do, because time is limited for those portfolios. We need to have a very disciplined approach to make a business turnaround one by one.
Our case, as I said, the farmer industry has a relatively longer lead time, but maybe the value I can bring to this company, this industry is, I respect the longer term, the lead from lead time, but there’s still something we can do with some disciplines, considering the time requirement. I may have a relatively shorter pitch to manage business. That may impact and that may improve our performance. That is one of the reasons why Naoki, the CEO, decided to have me as a CFO who has different strengths, a different background, the pharma industry.
One thing I’ve learned about your company, which I find quite interesting, is that a lot of companies in your space have been adopting AI in the drug discovery process, but you’ve actually been using it since 2019. You guys are way out of the curve, I have to think. Tell us a little about that, how you took the lead because 2019 wasn’t on everybody’s mind, I wouldn’t think, even in your industry.
Thank you very much. Again, Astellas is committed to science and innovations because our mission is to turn innovative science into the study for the patient. That is also a means we will leverage whatever available technology is outside the companies. I see that drug discovery in our area, in our technology data adaptation, is first. We already see great results from there. Of course, the digitalization itself is not the objective.
That is a tool, a process, just levers for us to perform better. I think the adaptation is relatively good. Now, can we do that adaptation, not only the drug discovery, but also our business operations? In some areas, I see that if I see it’s a natural for any companies, a relatively advanced area in the value chain means other areas are still behind. My area, like a business operation finance area, is relatively slow compared to that and moves. I need to push it up.
Fascinating. You touched on a little bit about using AI in business applications. Of course, one of the areas that’s really embracing it with some concerns because of cybersecurity and data privacy issues is finance and accounting. Have you been embracing AI within the world of finance and accounting?
We are trying. Not yet the level we can say I’m satisfied because I see a lot of great companies, like tech companies, those ideas very well. I need to, again, push it up harder to this company, but you are right. Always, we need to consider both sides, the benefit side. Also, the security governance side. Back to my experience with the CFO conversation in Procter & Gamble, if I ask the same question to that gentleman, I know he would ask, “Atsushi, that’s why your job is so interesting. You need to have both benefit and control.”
That makes a lot of sense. One question I want to ask you, and I find it interesting because you’re clearly with a company that I don’t know enough about them to say it’s risk-taking. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but it’s clearly innovative and it’s fearless about the way it solves problems. It should be because what it does for people is so important. Yet at the same time, you’re a finance person. You’re probably a little bit risk-averse. How do you balance those things? You want to bring good financial practices to the company, you want to reduce the risk profile, but you don’t want to kill the spirit of innovation, as we sometimes call it here. How do you manage both of those roles?
Again, as I said, it depends on, I think it’s a situation, but more especially, the upstream R&D research project. Again, that is success probability is one out of 10,000 or 20,000. I cannot make a judgment, any judgment, on which science will be used, right? No. What I say is, “Are we allocating the right capital resources to those areas? I cannot allocate too much.” The allocation is good enough. Within that allocation, they can make a much better judgment than I, honestly.
For early risk, the probability of success cases, more like the resource allocation type job and type discussions. To the downstream, go to market level, that is more like a difficult building block, a building-up type of action. What is the logic of the incremental sales doing so? Can we see the market result? Shall we adjust the spending? It’s more like ROI type discussions. That is different. That depends on which value chain we’re talking about. I may change the question I ask, but eventually, the how to control is different based on the stage of the value chain.
You’ve had a very admirable career, and the role of the CFO has changed since you completed your education and started at P&G in ways that were probably hard to have predicted even 5 or 10 years ago. Even at that, I’d love to get your prediction. How do you see the CFO world continuing to evolve in the years ahead? You mentioned having a 10-year plan? How does financial leadership the most fit into that?
A couple of big changes may happen in the CFO world because even in the CFO world, technology can be simplified. One of our strengths as CFO, or the requirement as a CFO, is broader coverage. We need to take care of not only P&L, but also balance sheets and cashflow. The good thing is that we need to connect dots together. Sometimes dot connection is beyond other functions because finance is in touch with the business in multiple value chains.
At the end of the day, most of the things will not be over. Most of the things will be translated into numbers over cash. The job of finance in a CFO is connecting each dot to make a better judgment. Maybe those kinds of things can be done by AI. That may simplify the CFO’s job. I don’t know what is coming, but for sure it’s all about people. Again, my job is really to train, educate and develop the next generation of CFO. That person may figure out what will be in 10 years’ coming different future. My job is really developing the next generation of CFO.
I was actually going to ask you that question. That’s fantastic. I want to ask you, you mentioned earlier that you played lacrosse in college, and I know the CFO job is a very difficult job. It’s stressful. There are a lot of hours involved in it. I’m not sure if you would be still playing lacrosse, but do you do any sports, or do you have any other hobbies when you’re away from being a CFO? You cannot be a CFO 16 hours a day, I don’t think.
No, I don’t think so. Now, I spend time with my family for shopping, travel or eating out during weekends. I’m a big fan of watching movies or dramas, and also not that close to playing golf. It’s not the playing of golf that really creates stress. I don’t know, it’s a good hobby for the weekend.
I’ve never gotten good at golf, and I just get so mad at myself when I try to play. The fact that you can play it is good for you. I just didn’t find it relaxing at all. I find work more relaxing than trying to become good at golf. As I said, I often like to close with a question on the next generation of CFOs. I feel you covered that already. I really genuinely would like to thank you for your time. I realize this isn’t the most convenient time in the world for you to be doing this thing. I appreciate that. I would just like to give you the opportunity to share your final thoughts.
Jack, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. I really enjoyed the conversation. Again, the finance, CFO job is exciting, I’d say. Again, don’t be afraid and take a challenge to explore a new world, a new area, so that eventually you will get a broader skill set, a competitive CFO. Keep on challenging and enjoy the challenge.
