From Hida Takayama to Switzerland and the United States until the foundation of Rei Inamoto is made | Forbes JAPAN (Forbes Japan)

Podcast navigated by Daisuke Nakamichi of Kitchen & Company“VISION TO THE FUTURE”WhenForbes Japanis collaborating. Think and communicate with guests who have a “perspective” who are active in Japan and overseas.

On October 10th, Rei Inamoto, a creative director based in New York and an I&CO founding partner, will be the guest. He spent his childhood in Hida Takayama and went on to study at an international school in Switzerland and a university in the United States. We asked him how he got into the creative industry from there.

Nakamichi:This time, we welcome Mr. Rei Inamoto, a founding partner of I&CO, a business invention firm, from New York. I think the time difference between Tokyo and New York is the most severe. Thank you for your time today.

Ray:to you too. I am honored to have been invited.

Nakamichi:Ray is a New York-based creative director who has been selected as one of the “50 Most Influential People in the World” by American magazine Creativity and “The 25 Most Creative People in the World’s Advertising Industry” by Forbes magazine. After working at R/GA, a major US digital agency, he joined AKQA, a major European digital agency. He has worked on many digital strategies and creatives for famous brands such as Nike, Audi, Xbox, and Google.

In 2013 and 2019, he was the first Japanese to be selected as chairman of the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival’s mobile and digital craft divisions. You launched I&CO in 2016 and opened a Tokyo office in July 2019. I would love to have a variety of conversations, centering on how we see Japan and the world.

First, I would like to ask how Rei Inamoto was created. You went to Switzerland from high school.

Ray:I’m originally from Tokyo, but my family moved from Tokyo to Hida Takayama in Gifu Prefecture when I was two years old because my father started a business. It was a village deep in the mountains called Kiyomi Village, where there were more cows than people.

I spent there until I was 15 years old, and from 15 years old I went to a language school in Tokyo for a year, after which I moved to Switzerland. When I was a child, I longed for the city for some reason, but looking back now, I think that growing up in the countryside during my childhood wasn’t so bad.

It was an environment that would be unthinkable in Tokyo, where I would spend the 12 years from kindergarten to junior high school in the same class with the same children. When I get home, I go fishing or play in the mountains. I’m glad I was able to spend my childhood carefree.

Nakamichi:I see.