Meet Hozumi Hanada
We have openings in our Japanese Platform!
Experience
Hozumi didn’t set out to join the financial services industry. After graduating from the Japan Journalist college, she worked for a variety of publishers and advertisement agencies as an Independent Editorial Firm alongside some of Tokyo’s top professionals. But years of working long hours on deadline led to physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. Something had to give. After quitting her job, Hozumi and her best friend traveled to Los Angeles. There, she met a Japanese businessman who offered her a job in San Francisco, but the company went bankrupt before she could start. She followed through with her plan to move to the U.S., and not long afterward, met Stephen Kagawa, who wanted to learn Japanese for an upcoming client presentation. Hozumi translated that presentation and later agreed to give a presentation of her own. When she saw the need for financial planning in the Japanese community, it changed her life forever. Now, she says, “I can’t imagine not being here all my life.” TPBC and its mission have given her the purpose and meaning she’d been searching for all along.
We have lots of Ohana members who never envisioned themselves working in financial services. But if our mission and vision resonate with you, we’d love to talk to you – even if you don’t have a background in finance or insurance.
A Defining Moment
When Hozumi was in junior high, something unexpected happened: the older graduating class trashed the school, leading to nationwide media coverage. “I didn’t think I really loved my school, but I was so pissed off, I cried,” Hozumi remembers. She joined two or three other students who wanted to help rebuild the school and its reputation. She crafted a message to her fellow students, urging them to become leaders in the process. “And then the students woke up,” Hozumi remembers. “It actually worked – the message actually worked.” In addition to cleaning the school on weekends, Hozumi and her fellow volunteers created a program to rebuild student morale, inspiring teamwork through an athletic competition. The school’s entire culture had changed by the time Hozumi’s class graduated. “That experience changed my thinking, my view of life or sense of the world. You know, you can do something about it. You can change something.”
Do you want to change the world, too? We’re looking for people who are driven to make a difference, even if they’re not sure how to do that just yet. Could your place be here with us?
Pets
Everyone who knows Hozumi knows she loves animals! She currently has two Great Pyrenees, Gojira and Honey. When she went to North Carolina to pick up Gojira, the intent was for Gojira to protect the two small dogs she had at the time from local coyote and bears. “He’s very smart and he’s very caring,” Hozumi says. But when Gojira got too big to play with, she decided he needed a playmate and added Honey to the family. Now, “Gojira is so happy, they connected, bonded, instant. So we are happy about that.”
If you visit our Monrovia office, you just might get to meet Honey and Gojira yourself! That’s him in the picture you see, dressed up for Halloween as a king. Our Ohana is full of animal lovers, so even if you don’t meet any of our Monrovia fur babies, you’ll see cats, dogs, snakes, and more on some of our Zoom meetings!
Advice for Recruits
“Our company is like a ship,” Hozumi says. The captain is Stephen Kagawa, and our job is to keep the ship moving forward to its destination. But if Stephen suddenly decides we’re going the wrong way and needs us to make a sharp turn, we’re going to make that turn. “You have to be able to flex together because we are doing a mission,” she says. “We are not doing this just to make money. We are doing a mission.” We might adjust our course to avoid a typhoon or monsoon, but in the end, we’re only going to succeed if everyone shares a strong belief in our mission. Hozumi believes in our mission so strongly that she’s become a respected and sought-after speaker at international conferences – it’s that level of focus and determination that helps keep us on track!
If you believe in helping families with holistic financial planning no matter where in the world their lives may lead, you share our vision.
As long as I am doing something to do good in the world, I'm happy.
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