Strengthening Cyber Risk Management
ACCJ member Ted Sato shares how his new cybersecurity book, written in collaboration with Keidanren, came about and discusses the issues it addresses.
Keidanren collaboration delivers book with practical advice to corporate leaders
As concern about cyber risk grows in Japan, a new book by veteran American Chamber of Commerce in Japan member and Marsh Japan, Inc. Senior Vice President Ted Sato aims to help corporate management find the most effective approach to mitigating risk and effectively responding to events.
Sato authored the book with Toshinori Kajiura, a member of Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation) and a senior researcher for information and communications technology policy at Hitachi. Kajiura was previously chair of Keidanren’s Working Group on Cybersecurity Enhancement.
🔼 Watch the video above for more insights from Sato himself.
Published in February by the Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, a Japanese industry newspaper, Strengthening Cyber Risk Management: A Keidanren Handbook to Cyber Risk Management is designed to provide corporate managers with practical guidance for dealing with cyber risk.
Not to be confused with cybersecurity, cyber risk is defined by the US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology as the “risk of financial loss, operational disruption, or damage from the failure of the digital technologies employed for informational and/or operational functions introduced to a manufacturing system via electronic means from the unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction of the manufacturing system.”
Sato told The ACCJ Journal that the book, which spans more than 200 pages, was written by professionals from the battlefield in easy-to-understand language. “We wanted corporate managers to be able to ask effective questions at the earliest stages of any cyber risk event. That is very important.”
“We wanted corporate managers to be able to ask effective questions at the earliest stages of any cyber risk event. That is very important.”
The idea came after a series of events last May which Sato conceived with Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun. The well-received sessions showed corporate managers how to deal with cyber risk, not solely as a technical issue but to emphasize management and factors related to organizational culture.
Keidanren had been hosting its own events since 2014, working to change the mind-set of corporate management on this critical issue. The organization built on Sato’s efforts to bring together professionals with similar motivation to create the Cyber Risk Management Japan Study Group, which was a supporting contributor to the book.
These efforts were also supported by the late Hiroaki Nakanishi, who was chair of Hitachi and Keidanren and contributed the foreword.
The book’s core advice draws on a 2014 report by the Internet Security Alliance and the National Association of Corporate Directors’ handbook on cyber risk, which recommends a one-team approach to corporate management. Beginning with the importance of expert advice from outside the company, the book advises an “art of science” approach that balances technology, human factor management, and operational excellence to ensure an organization’s readiness, response and recovery, and recurrence prevention.
The book has been well received by reviewers for its practical guidance.
“It is very meaningful to promote cooperation with experienced US firms at this early stage for Japanese companies,” Sato said. “If all goes well, next we plan to make an English version to share in Asia.”
Of One Blood All Nations
There is ample scholarship around Meiji-period Japan and the United States that John Bingham did more to shape America’s initial diplomatic relationship with Japan than any other American. In his biography of Bingham, former ACCJ Executive Director Sam Kidder contributes significantly to that body and makes a persuasive case for the US minister to Japan from 1873 to 1885.
John Bingham: Ohio Congressman’s Diplomatic Career in Meiji Japan (1873–1885)
Listen to this story:
I often pass by a wall on which hang portraits of the US Ambassadors to Japan in chronological order. I am drawn to it because I have known a few of them. By comparing the portraits, one can trace the evolution of photography and fashion through the centuries. As the calendar rolls back into the 19th century, the image quality declines until it becomes clear that the portrait is a grainy copy. One of the earliest and most recognizable portraits is of John Bingham, US minister to Japan from 1873 to 1885, the subject of Sam Kidder’s latest book Of One Blood All Nations.
Diplomatic Difference
There is ample scholarship around Meiji-period Japan and the United States, and Kidder’s biography of Bingham contributes significantly to that body. But it also goes further. He makes a persuasive case that “John Bingham did more to shape America’s initial diplomatic relationship with Japan than any other American.”
A leading figure in post-Civil War Reconstruction, Bingham was an Ohio Congressman and one of the prosecutors in the Lincoln assassination case. He was author of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which provides equal protection under the law.
Without question, Bingham had an accomplished life before coming ashore in Yokohama. As Kidder’s book details, Bingham’s innate decency, sense of duty, and energy led him to build the framework of the two nations’ diplomatic relationship while overcoming obstacles in nearly every direction.
The author shows the perplexing diplomatic and political knots that bound key issues surrounding the bilateral relationship, and how Bingham untied them. His hard-won success elevated the United States’ relationship with Japan from among its ties to other nations.
Bingham inherited a poorly housed and staffed US mission, with far-flung and nearly frontier consulates and incoherent administration. By management talent and diplomatic skill, he left behind an effective mission that was well networked with Japanese officials, influential, and trusted. His personal integrity and example played a key role in the rise of US prestige in Japan.
Context Matters
Diplomacy is sometimes more a prism than a window, and Bingham’s experience in Congress helped him measure what he could do to advance the bilateral relationship against the United States’ political realities and mood of the time.
To this part of the biography, Kidder brings truly impressive work tracing Bingham’s family, faith, and political connections to provide the context for, and limits of, Bingham’s personal political power. Bingham drew on his contacts for trusted advice, to staff key positions with competence, and for personal support.
Distinct from biographies by others, Of One Blood All Nations displays the author’s understanding of Bingham’s faith as the compass of his behavior and decisions. This is insightful and important. Other historians sometimes default to religious caricatures or shorthand about “beliefs of that period.” Kidder accepts Bingham as he was: an industrious but reserved man whose abundant intellect was yoked with an equal weight of modesty. Bingham’s personal diligence, dislike of ostentation, and his integrity distinguished him from other foreign diplomats of the time.
This diplomatic biography is an entertaining read. Bingham contends with many of the same issues—and character types—encountered in modern diplomacy and expatriate life: managing, or suffering as a result of, lags in communication with the capital; judging between when an immediate decision is required and when to wait; and bridging misperceptions as the only person with a foot in each world.
Bingham is not an unknown historical figure but, until now, rarely has his period in Japan been explored. As the book’s conclusion explains, Bingham’s papers and family were scattered, which makes Kidder’s work even more impressive. Faced with these challenges, another writer might have filled in the blanks with speculation. But Kidder set himself the more difficult task of understanding the subject in context. He does not embellish Bingham’s portrait, but restores it so that its long-lost detail and color emerge.