I want to work behind the scenes to support talented people, so I became a "mastermind"

- You're from the scenic Suma Coast area. Did your love of the sea start from when you were a child?

Suzuki: I was born in Akashi and grew up in Kobe. I spent my childhood going to school while looking out over the Seto Inland Sea and Awaji Island. Akashi has a shopping street called "Uonotana," and the sushi in Suma and Tarumizu is excellent. The beautiful sea and delicious fish are my childhood scenery.

Suzuki: I devoted myself to soccer for six years at Nada Junior and Senior High School. The Nada soccer club was weak at the time, and I myself was a poor player. Nevertheless, when I was in charge of the team, we beat two strong nearby schools, Mikage Technical High School and Mikage High School, which have produced future J-Leaguers and Japanese national team members, and won the Kobe City First Division League. I was also in charge of the team front office, and although I didn't contribute much as a player, I showed my true talent in team management. I thoroughly thought about "What should we do to help a weak team win?" and "What are our strengths?" Even though I was a high school student, I did SWOT analysis. Our strengths were "convenient location and being able to use the ground freely." At that time, the Nada soccer club shared the ground with the rugby club, but the rugby club often didn't use it, so the soccer club almost monopolized it. Meanwhile, Mikage Technical High School and Mikage High School were active in other sports and had difficulty securing a practice field. So I asked the advisor there, "Would you like to play a practice match with Nada?" In other words, I was making a telemarketing call. Thus began our exchange with the two strong schools. As we played practice matches repeatedly, our level also improved. The other team sent many players to the National Athletic Meet. However, our goal was to win the city tournament, so we implemented strategic scheduling to bring our team's strength to its peak when the rival school's players were at their lowest after the National Athletic Meet. The result was our victory in the Kobe City Division 6 League. It was an epoch-making moment.

--The important thing about this story is that the high school students weren't forced to do things by their advisors or coaches, but rather they set their own goals, devised strategies, put them into practice, and achieved results.

Suzuki: Mr. Murakami, who was the soccer club advisor at the time, is my lifelong mentor. Due to the free school culture at Nada, he did not serve as coach himself, but warmly supported our self-management. In today's education, a big challenge is "how to bring out children's independence." The experience of success through self-production and self-management. I think it was very meaningful for me to have had this experience during my high school years.

Suzuki: My father and grandfather were both very serious about music, so there was always music in the home. I also loved singing, so I formed a folk band and studied vocal music. I also became familiar with opera from the first year of junior high school. Although I aspired to study vocal music at Tokyo University of the Arts, I gave up because I couldn't sing at a high enough level, and instead joined the men's choir called the Choir Academy at the University of Tokyo. Here too, I was good at administrative tasks, so I ended up serving as a director of the Tokyo Big Six University Choral Federation. I also served as the musical director of the musical theater company "Komaba Little Theater Neverland Musical Community." I also played tennis and skied, but the main focus of my student life was performing. Both the choir and the theater company performed three to four times a year. The Tokyo Big Six University Choral Federation attracted 1 people for a two-day performance, and the theater company filled a 3-person capacity theater for 4 consecutive days. Since the expenses for each performance were millions, I was always trying to sell tickets...I was so busy that I neglected my studies. He was a fully-fledged producer, drawing 2 spectators a year and earning tens of millions of yen in total ticket sales.

- You have been very active as a producer in the fields of sports and entertainment since your student days, but instead of working in the entertainment industry, you went on to work at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry).

Suzuki: I like singing and soccer, but I was bad at it, so maybe that's why I was bad at it? I wanted to support the good guys because I was bad at it. I wanted to work behind the scenes and help them develop their talents. That's what I thought. My friends from college were puzzled, saying, "Why would you become a bureaucrat when you only did performances and didn't study?" But my high school friends said, "I thought it was a good fit." They knew that I was good at management and front-line work, and that I was good at getting budgets and closing negotiations. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry is a government agency that has the nature of a "group of producers." My father, who was a researcher and developer at a chemical manufacturer, was involved in a project led by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, so I'd been hearing about it since I was in elementary school. In the materials I collected for my job hunt, it said, "The Ministry of International Trade and Industry is producing the Tokyo Film Festival," and I thought, "This is great..." Since I was always doing performances, I took the civil service exam in my first year as practice, and I barely passed. Since this unusual piece had been accepted, the newspapers carried the story with headlines like "From Student Theatre Troupe to MITI Bureaucrats," and I even made the cheeky remark that "From now on I'll do my best at the National Diet Theater"...

Suzuki: My twenties was a time of steady training to become a civil servant, but all the departments I moved to were interesting and I learned a lot.
　
When I was 24, I was seconded to the National Land Agency (now the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism), and while I was in charge of the "Hometown Creation Project" and the "Resort Law," I traveled to all prefectures and had a professional connection with the sea, which I had loved since I was a child. At that time, I learned that although our country's coastline has different beauty in different places throughout the four seasons, the majority of the people have difficulty enjoying the sea. To be honest, I thought that was a waste. As a section manager in charge of resorts, I was also involved in the creation of marinas, and I thought that turning part of an existing fishing port into a marina, which would achieve both development costs and benefits and regional revitalization, would be a win-win for both the fishing port and the resort operator, but the adjustments are not progressing well. One reason is the disadvantage of the vertical administrative division, with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in charge of fishing and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in charge of marine leisure. Local governments need to work together to involve the private sector and make adjustments.

- As you pointed out, there is certainly a gap in awareness between fishermen and marine leisure due to the difference in their positions. However, in recent years, through the restoration of seaweed beds in Japan's first marina with the aim of creating a Blue Carbon Belt® and the beach clean-up of the LOVE OCEAN project, I feel that the distance between fishermen and people in Riviera has been shrinking. We are all like-minded people who love and want to protect the ocean.

Suzuki: I was sent to the University of Sydney in Australia by the Ministry of Education and served as a visiting researcher for one year. In Australia, there is a yacht harbor in every inlet, and thousands of yachts fill the sea not only on weekends but also on Thursday afternoons and evenings. There is a deep-rooted culture of families enjoying sailing together, regardless of age or gender, and they sail their boats during the day and spend time together with families on other boats when they return to port, watching the sunset. Not only the wealthy, but also ordinary families enjoy the thrill of sailing on large boats. Thinking that this is exactly what well-being is, I also enjoyed sailing in Australia.

- Japan is a country surrounded by the sea, but the sea has been left out of school education. Even in the Shonan area, most children only swim in the pool, and even if they go to the sea, they only go as far as the water's edge. The experience of "seeing land from the sea" should give children a perspective that is 180 degrees different from everyday life, so it's a shame. That's why Riviera runs the Japan Maritime Academy, where children can learn about the ocean through experiences through yachting, and has already provided marine programs to 8300 people. This is part of the "Riviera Future Creation Project," which has three pillars: environment, education, and health and medical care (well-being). In Japan, even if you have experience in university yacht clubs, the reality is that many people quit when they enter society. Yachting has not become a lifelong sport. Did you start yachting in Australia?

Suzuki: I started sailing in my fourth year of university. A fellow student at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry was an enthusiastic sailor, and he invited me to learn how to sail a dinghy at the Riviera Seabornia Marina. But my first experience with the ocean was a cutter boat training camp I attended in the fifth and sixth grades of elementary school. A public elementary school in Kobe, in partnership with the Kobe University of Mercantile Marine at the time, offered this curriculum. Rowing a cutter is a powerful experience for elementary school students. The boat won't move unless everyone works together and plays their role. There was a lot to learn from the ocean. For children in Sydney, the ocean is an everyday occurrence. In order to expand the base of ocean lovers, it is important to get them familiar with the ocean from elementary and junior high school age. In that sense, I hope that the wide-area regional revitalization project "LOVEOCEAN" based on marine environment restoration, such as Riviera's marine programs and beach cleanups, will spread. My connection with Riviera began when I wanted to expand the number of ocean lovers and we hit it off through this project.

Suzuki: In Sydney, I was a member of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia and enjoyed the yacht life by renting a large yacht owned by the club. Later, when I was seconded to the Yamaguchi Prefectural Government, I shared a 35-foot boat with friends at a marina in Hagi. Now I own a 30-foot yacht in Mitoyo, Kagawa Prefecture, and occasionally operate a large yacht in San Diego, USA.

- This is an idea along the same lines as the prestige members-only club, the Riviera Resort Club.

Suzuki: From small boats to gorgeous large cruisers, full-scale racing yachts, and luxurious catamaran yachts During my time at Tokyo University During my time at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry with my Green Tennis Club classmates During my time on secondment to the Yamaguchi Prefectural Government in Shizuoka My beloved Suzuki at Hagi Marina with friends and family At Nio Marina in Mitoyo City with my eldest son, the 76 RIVIERA 2024 RIVIERA 2024 Interview I'm happy that not only can I share a wide variety of high-grade boats to suit my purpose at the time, but I also enjoy the comprehensive concierge service that is tailored to each individual member. I spend my time feeling well-being at the Riviera Resort Club.

Suzuki: The "well-being" we have talked about so far means "a state of complete physical, mental, and social satisfaction."　

Inspired by the Shokasonjuku school that I attended many times while working at the Yamaguchi Prefectural Government, the Suzukan Seminar has been running for 29 years and has produced about 1000 students. The theme of the seminar is "Graduating from Modernity." It does not deny the material civilization and economic development that modern society has consistently pursued, but it calls for people to graduate from placing them above all else. Last year, the UN Secretary-General spoke of "BEYOND GDP," and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio used the word "well-being" in his policy speech. Shonan is a region with a high level of well-being in Japan, as it is home to a natural environment, culture and art, industry, and human connections. However, Japan is a developing country in terms of well-being in the world. The true focus of well-being is not actually health or economic power, but "living your life the way you want to live it." I have high hopes for the Shonan Coast (Miura-Yugawara) proposed by Riviera, from the perspective of well-being.

-- Riviera's corporate philosophy is to "live a fulfilling life in harmony with nature," and the "fulfilling spirit" in this philosophy comes from living the way you want to live.

Suzuki: The Shonan International Art Festival, which was launched last fall at the invitation of Riviera, also has great significance in the pursuit of well-being.

- The Shonan International Art Festival, which values ​​a perspective from the sea and aims to revitalize regional areas on a wide scale using art, was launched with the participation of a great number of members of the Japan Art Academy.

Suzuki: I would like the Shonan International Art Festival to serve as a trigger for us to work together to promote the creation of a well-being community through culture, arts, and the sea.

--You've always been interested in and enjoyed everything.

Suzuki: My nickname in my Nada Junior High School days was "Enjoy Suzuki." I loved festivals and would raise my hand to be on any and every executive committee for the school festival or sports festival, and no adults were able to stop me. But the most important point was that the more I devoted myself to it, the more comrades I made. Comrades are people who have shared the experience of suffering and happiness, who have struggled and celebrated together. You can make acquaintances on social media, but you can't make friends unless you talk to them. You can't make comrades unless you complete a project. I was involved in the founding of the J.League, was recommended as a director of the Football Association, and was involved in the bid for the Olympic Games, even though I had little experience as a player, because I shared the good times and the bad with the great players of the past. I would not have been able to serve as the secretary-general of the League of Parliamentarians for the Promotion of Culture and the Arts, or create the "Law Concerning the Revitalization of Theaters, Concert Halls, etc." (Theatre Law), without the activities and friends I had in my university days. Riviera was also a comrade who was a "mastermind." Let's have fun and pursue well-being together!