For the Toyota Tsusho Group, the essence of our business is visiting worksites where challenges need to be overcome, working hard and producing results for our customers there, and engaging in a wide variety of businesses that contribute to society from a medium- to long-term perspective. This is achievable by each of our employees pursuing our "Be the Right ONE" vision (of being an irreplaceable and one-and-only presence) to remain the company of choice for our partners and stakeholders, with everything centered on "people."

From this belief, our aim is to become "People Company Toyotsu." In workplaces everywhere, I see our employees working with great energy. I hear customers often comment that Toyota Tsusho employees are energetic, sincere, and reliable people. And every time, it fills me with pride.

Over the span of 20 years, we have grown our workforce roughly sevenfold to 70,000 people while expanding our business footprint to workplaces in 130 nations worldwide. To achieve further growth within this expansion, we need to combine the unifying (centripetal) force of our corporate group with the expansionary (centrifugal) force of each employee demonstrating one's full potential within one's area of responsibility. To maximize these forces, we have implemented a number of initiatives for connecting our employees globally.

One example is our Global Advanced Leadership Program (GALP), a six-month program that aims to develop global leaders from among next-generation management candidates selected from around the world. With participants able to expand self-awareness and awareness of our corporate group's philosophy and sense of purpose and join discussions about how to contribute to society, the program cultivates people able to lead diverse human capital regardless of nationality, age, or gender. It is also helping to expand our global network.

Developing global leaders is an important initiative that is directly linked to building a global network with diverse partners, and this is the social capital that creates our unique businesses. The progress of training is shared and discussed at meetings of the Global HR Committee, which includes management, and the PDCA cycle is implemented to strengthen the program.

Through this and other initiatives, we strengthen our unifying force while leveraging the expansionary force of unique Toyota Tsusho businesses around the world to embody the "People Company Toyotsu" ideal.

In the Toyota Tsusho Group, we see business strategy and human capital strategy as two sides of the same coin. Our human capital strategy exists to drive business strategy, and ultimately management strategy, while our various HR initiatives and employee development efforts must align with our business objectives. Through human capital management, we closely integrate our business strategy and human capital strategy while clarifying how this integration contributes to enhancing corporate value and reflecting it in concrete HR initiatives.

In human capital development, we emphasize a two-way interaction between the company and employees. The company provides a range of opportunities to help each employee maximize their potential. However, rather than just relying on such one-way actions from the company, it is also important to inspire employees to take self-directed action, moving to seize opportunities for themselves and actively proposing projects that they wish to participate in. By investing in human capital, such as offering training programs and opportunities for individuals to proactively engage in diverse experiences, we are focusing on creating attractive workplaces, promoting human capital management, and developing the human capital needed for our business strategy.

In our Mid-Term Business Plan, we set ourselves the targets to realize a global "The DNA Awakens" and "Thriving, Living Organisms". As CHRO, I recognize that my role in this is to promote an understanding of Humanity, Gembality, and Beyond, as elements of the Toyota Tsusho DNA, among our workforce of 70,000 people. Of course, this is not to create uniform employees, but to build a solid foundation that ensures our diverse talent remains grounded in the core values and intentions behind their actions. While employees may not constantly think about the company's DNA in their daily work, I hope they consistently uphold the unique mindset of the Toyota Tsusho Group. When making decisions, I want them to evaluate whether their work aligns with our corporate group's purpose, serving the children of the future and contributing to society.

To ensure penetration of this DNA to all corners of the world, President and I travel globally to hold town halls and roundtables, deepening dialogue with employees. Additionally, we also ask employees themselves to hold workshops in their respective countries and regions for discussing among them their personal experiences to date and for reviewing how they embody the Toyota Tsusho DNA in their workplaces. We believe these efforts contribute to realizing a thriving, living organism where diverse talent around the world combines their unique strengths.

Our next challenge is to further enhance employee engagement. In highly engaged organizations, all employees enjoy working toward the common goals and possess the resilience to push forward even in the face of adversity. To build such a strong organization, it is essential not to continue with the same approaches but to begin with change at the management level. To drive this transformation, we launched the Human Company Taskforce in April 2025, a cross-functional corporate management committee where division executives meet monthly. At those meetings, the president and division executives engage in candid discussions on topics such as work styles, women empowerment, focusing on the root causes rather than simply seeking consensus. The process starts with management determining what to change and how to change it, accompanied by a commitment to concrete action from a first-person perspective. Without that, we cannot expect employees to move forward. At the same time, as decisions made in these meetings are implemented in the workplace, we encourage employees to voice what they want to change and drive continuous improvements. Transparency and open communication are vital to this process. To convey to employees the actions taken by management and for employees to then take ownership, we will increasingly ensure that information is shared openly.

At the root of these initiatives is realizing our "Be the Right ONE" vision, which is not just a slogan, but our management strategy itself. Going forward, we will unite employees around the world under the "Be the Right ONE" vision while strengthen the organizational capabilities of the Toyota Tsusho Group and becoming a value-generating company that contributes to building prosperous societies.