Diane Hughes

I advise on people strategy: how an organization is structured, how leaders are selected and developed, and how culture holds together as a company grows or enters a new market.

Most of my career was inside large organizations, in senior HR roles at McKinsey, Adobe, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Fidelity International, across New York, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Two of those were Head of HR for a country, where the team was small and I was close to every decision. That experience translates more directly to smaller companies than the size of those firms suggests. Since starting my own practice in Tokyo, most of my work has been with smaller and growing organizations.

What I add beyond the functional expertise is genuine fluency across Japanese, Chinese, and Western business contexts. Native English and Cantonese, business Mandarin, conversational Japanese, permanent residency in Japan and Hong Kong. Chicago Booth MBA, and governance training through the Board Director Training Institute of Japan.

I would be most useful to companies building or expanding their organization in Asia, and to boards that want a considered people perspective in the room.