FY24

Our Culture

“Moon is a place that embodies diversity, and I am sure most of us are proud of the freedom to be ourselves at Moon.”

Yu Onodera
Senior FP&A Analyst 

Celebrating Pride

June marks International Pride Month, a time when we celebrate our LGBTQIA+ Moon Mates. It also gives us a chance to recognize, represent, see, and hear from our queer community and educate ourselves about inclusion, allyship, overcoming biases, and becoming better, kinder, more empathetic humans.

Throughout the month, our team came together for learning sessions, discussions, and other fun activities like trivia and workshops to celebrate Pride. As Moon, we let our creativity guide us – we organized a community-based art show and gallery where artists could showcase their queer-themed art to the public. The evening also included an open mic session where attendees could share their experiences, their inspiration, and how they’ve all allowed their inner creativity to chart their own path. Hearing how others have set their own course helps us learn more about each other and the world around us, allowing us to create a vibrant, thriving, and safe environment of inclusion.

Being Recognized for Our Path to Equity and Inclusion

Moon became a proud recipient of Japan’s work with Pride PRIDE Index 2023 Gold Award. The PRIDE Index recognizes companies throughout Japan that support the promotion and establishment of diversity management within their organization. Evaluation is based on policy, representation, inspiration, development, engagement, empowerment, and the actions a company takes to ensure a safe and inclusive workplace.

“Although the achievement of the Gold [PRIDE Index Award] status fills our hearts with the feeling of accomplishment, we know that we still have space to improve even further.”

Machi Rezende
Design Lead

Continuing Conversations

To uphold our commitment to celebrating Pride and inclusivity year-round, we hold regularly scheduled discussions to increase dialogue and awareness around Diversity, Equite, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. We know it is essential to have diverse voices heard and foster allyship for Moon’s minority groups. Topics of these discussions have included finding joy in our identities, LGBTQIA+ inclusion in entrepreneurship, the power of diversity in innovation, and discussing what we each see in various works of art.

Creating a place of diversity, equity, and inclusion requires intentional action to create change, and we know that that work is endless.  

“We bring all of our employees together and create a sense of belonging for all, regardless of gender. We want to continue moving toward a common vision, unlocking the creative potential of people, creating new value, and enriching the world.”

Anna Hiraoka
HR & Sr. L&D Specialist

International Women’s Day (IWD) in March was another great opportunity to celebrate our diverse community, particularly the amazing women at Moon. “It's a day to embrace how important women are in our lives and in the world. At Moon, we recognize  and amplify the voices and contributions of women, and foster an inclusive culture where everyone regardless of gender can thrive,” says Anna Hiraoka, HR and Sr. L&D Specialist.

To commemorate this year’s IWD, we held “Her Story Unfolded,” an inspiring virtual event featuring a panel of women in leadership and founder roles. They each told empowering stories of how they set their own courses by following their dreams, setting their own goals and achieving them on their own terms, and creating their own paths to success – along with all the challenges they’ve experienced along the way and how they overcame them. 

We also held in-person workshops, including one where we invited employees from a Mitsui & Co. organization to unleash their creativity by visualizing their dream business with LEGO. Another workshop we held focused on identifying gender-based biases and how we can be more aware to create impactful change. 

The Kabeuchi program is an easy-to-access, Mitsui-facing window for anyone at Mitsui to casually talk to people within Moon about their new business initiatives, Moon’s programs, and anything they might be struggling with regarding gaining market traction or launching products.

The program started in an effort to form deeper relationships between Mitsui and Moon. Through customer research, Moon designers discovered the common pain points Mitsui individuals face in their day-to-day work. We learned through feedback that Moon's programs still felt distant, unattainable, and confusing, and there was no easy touchpoint to learn about and directly apply to Spark and Boost with confidence.

We launched the Kabeuchi program as a beta initiative in late October of 2023 to test our assumption that, if we provided an easy touchpoint to support Mitsui entrepreneurs and introduce them to Moon, we would get far more inquiries than in the past.

After a 4 week testing period, we received 20 submissions, conducted 18 consultations, and had 14 leads for various programs at Moon.

Due to this success, we hope to redesign and relaunch the Kabeuchi program at the beginning of FY25 to support even more people in the new business generation journey. 

“I felt that trying to uncover the answer to these questions could inspire many people around the world looking to start something new.” 

“I hope that everyone spends at least some time in their life thinking about what new value they can create in the world that is purposeful and brings joy to their life.” 

Mike Peng
CCO

After the success of the first film “KAMIYAMA: The Little Town with Big Ideas,” the Moon Media team officially launched its second film “KINMI: Brewing the Future of Sake” in January 2024.

The story for this second film focused on Nao Kohara, an ex-Shosha worker and Venture Capitalist, who decided to “set his own course,” pursue his passion, and launch a new Japanese sake brand called KINMI Sake. Unlike other sake brands, Nao wanted to create something new to the world. He convinced four different generations-old breweries all over Japan to create raw, unfiltered, and unpasteurized sake — something that had never been done before and difficult to perfect. 

Although we at Moon have our own portfolio of startups, Moon Media has reminded us that we can learn so much from outside our own four walls. (1) From Nao and the KINMI story, we have learned that successful businesses shouldn’t just be defined purely by profit, but also by the purpose it is trying to achieve. (2) In Japan, where creating change is often met with pushback, Nao was able to work collaboratively with breweries to create new value in the world, delighting both external customers and internal workers alike. (3) And through creating such a strong family-like connection with each brewery, we have also learned just how powerfully that can serve a business. Case in point: months after the film was created, we learned that one of the four KINMI sake breweries was heavily destroyed by the Noto earthquake and tsunami. But because of just how tightly knit the network of breweries had become through KINMI, the three other breweries came to their aid and rescue, saving the remaining surviving sake barrels and helping the now-inoperable brewery to finish fermenting them.

“KINMI: Brewing the Future of Sake” 

“KAMIYAMA: The Little Town with Big Ideas"