Visions - Summer 2017 - 3

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

New SC Americas President Talks about
Synergy, Communication and the Future

O

	n April 1st, 2017, Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (SCOA)
welcomed its new President and CEO and leader of SC Americas,
Mr. Shingo Ueno. Mr. Ueno previously served SCOA as GM
of Tubular Products Group during his ascent in the ranks at Sumitomo
Corporation (SC), so he is no stranger to the Americas. Now, as Mr. Ueno
assumes his new position, we spoke with him about his vision for the
future of SC and SCOA, as well as the changes he has seen as SC
approaches its 100-year anniversary.
Are there areas of your career that prepared you for
your new position as President and CEO of Sumitomo
Corporation of Americas?

I joined Sumitomo Corporation in 1982. I was in
charge of tubular, and our main supplier was our
group company Sumitomo Metals. We were working for oil companies in supplying them with casing
and tubing for transporting oil and gas. Then, I was
working with oil and gas tubular in the Middle
East until I returned to Tokyo in 1993. After that
I worked in London from 1999 until 2007, where
I was promoted to GM for SC Europe's Tubular
Group. Then I went back to Tokyo again, and then
to Houston to work as GM of Tubular Products
Group in SCOA. At the same time, I was head of
our Houston Office and all that entails. I returned
to Tokyo again to become head of the Oil & Gas
Division for Sumitomo Corporation. I did that for
four years, and now I am here.
From my career, there are two turning points
for me. The first is the innovative changes in the
tubular businesses. In the past when I was in charge
of tubular in the 1990s, it was a simple traditional
business model: we buy the pipe and we sell the
pipe. This soon needed to be changed to a supply
chain business, with value added. At the same time,
there needed to be investment in manufacturing and
distribution parts as well, so we moved the strategy
180 degrees. This was designed to offer our customers additional services, which the oil companies
used to do, but no more. Their focus has become the
extraction & delivery of oil, and they aren't interested in handling tubular inventory etc. They wanted
outsourcing, and we developed a supply chain business management model for this business.

The second was the change in strategy from exclusively being a trading company to an investment
business model. To some extent, we need to enjoy
our history of businesses that our predecessors established, but we need to adapt to the new business
environment. We needed to change.
But also, I realized the "Beyond Pipe" concept, so we
needed to fulfill other services for the oil companies.
At the same time, the Chemical Group is supplying
to the oil companies, as is our Construction Group,
and in between, there are many businesses we had
not connected. In my career, I changed my job's
scope from just tubular to all of the oil & gas industry. We needed a vision for the long term.
I also tried to make sure that information is thought
of as a company asset that should be shared. The
person at the next desk from you may have the key
to your business growth, so sharing is important,
albeit very challenging. That information needs to
be shared when it can still have an effect.
We need communication across the organization,
so I advocated some task forces to help this. Those
task forces developed into our working groups, and
we are trying to find new business opportunities
between our businesses.
Where do you see opportunities for South America?

We can have many opportunities, but not without
risk. I visited Brazil this year, and I was surprised
at just how several of our business investments are
growing simultaneously. COSAN, Gerdau, our water
treatment business with Brookfield - these are all
new areas of expansion. Traditionally, our chemical
business has been active in Brazil, which took a long
time, but now we have some thriving businesses.
Sumitomo Corporation of Americas

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Visions - Summer 2017

Contents
Visions - Summer 2017 - Contents
Visions - Summer 2017 - 2
Visions - Summer 2017 - 3
Visions - Summer 2017 - 4
Visions - Summer 2017 - 5
Visions - Summer 2017 - 6
Visions - Summer 2017 - 7
Visions - Summer 2017 - 8
Visions - Summer 2017 - 9
Visions - Summer 2017 - 10
Visions - Summer 2017 - 11
Visions - Summer 2017 - 12
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