They say that the CEO of Rakuten is a really weird and eccentric person. A few years ago he instated a company wide policy that all staff must use English for any and all business within the company. Since most Japanese people can't speak English, he ended up creating a really weird atmosphere where people pretend to use English but really end up secretly (or not so much) conducting business in Japanese.
My wife works for one of their companies here in the US, and yes, they do all meetings in English, which really doesn't affect their US companies,but does make company wide meetings quite odd, painful at points.
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They say that the CEO of Rakuten is a really weird and eccentric person. A few years ago he instated a company wide policy that all staff must use English for any and all business within the company. Since most Japanese people can't speak English, he ended up creating a really weird atmosphere where people pretend to use English but really end up secretly (or not so much) conducting business in Japanese.
In short, he's a weirdo, though a successful one.
My wife works for one of their companies here in the US, and yes, they do all meetings in English, which really doesn't affect their US companies,but does make company wide meetings quite odd, painful at points.