Nozomu Sahashi

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Nozomu Sahashi (猿橋望, Nozomu Sahashi?, born September 12 1951) was the president of the large publicly-traded Japanese eikaiwa company Nova. He is the inventor of Nova's particular teaching method and has patented it, as well as a telephone interpretation (translation) system, although some of his ideas could easily earn a title less respectable than 'inventor'.strange tie & see a doctor over a videophone

The Early Days: most likely mid 1980's Sahashi from middle, Anders Lundqvist back row left

There is some degree of confusion about how to pronounce his name - it's either "Sahashi" (which is how most official documents list it) or "Saruhashi" (how many teachers pronounce it). Also faxes sent to branches in September and October of 2007 have his name written "Nozom Sahashi". The best explanation is that his original name 'Nozomu Saruhashi' was changed (legally or simply how it was phonetically expressed in English) at some point in the late 1990's to Nozomu Sahashi. His brother (who is also the president of a internet based language training company) retains the original 'Saruhashi'. When and why the 'u' was dropped from 'Nozomu' to achieve the final 'Nozom' is still a mystery.

In 2007 an internal company memo that was sent from Sahashi to Japanese Nova staff was revealed, and included instructions from him to continue recruiting students despite a shortage of instructors. Last year, Sahashi blamed inexperienced staff for the loss of 3 billion yen.

Sahashi had also inexplicably made bold statements about how NOVA would recover from the Supreme Court rulings against Nova and the METI Report scandal. At one point he announced Nova was considering offering new stock - a statement that was quickly retracted after all trading of Nova stock was halted for 2 days for financial review.

Circa 2001

Nova's President, Saruhashi (Sahashi), has also embarrassed the Liberal Democratic Party (Jiminto) by using one of its politicians to do favors for Nova. Sahashi (head of Nova) is the The Chairperson of the board of directors of Ibunka Communication Zaidan. That is the Japanese business name for Nova. Yasuhide Nakayama (LDP), a Japanese politician, is a trustee of Ibunka Communication Zaidan. Nakayama's father, and ex-politician, is a director of Ibunka Communication Zaidan.

In June of 2007, Sahashi publicly on NHK T.V. apologized on behalf of Nova for what the METI Report called "extremely malicious" ways of signing up students and that Nova had "engaged in illegal acts, with the top management at its head office authorizing the irregularities."


Contents

[edit] Founding

Sahashi spent several years jobless after returning from France[1] before founding NOVA in 1981 with two foreign English teachers.[2] He is the inventor of Nova's particular teaching method, "The NOVA System Concept", which he patented. The Concept is perhaps most comparable to the direct method of language instruction, although Sahashi's method pivots on the interaction with and the repeating of an instructor who was a native speaker. Sahashi thought a native speaker's voice would alleviate the difficulty of the average Japanese brain to distinguish English from background noise, as Japanese and English languages evoked different brain wave patterns.[3] Sahashi had also patented a video phone camera device[4], a telephone interpretation (translation) system and an at-home medical examination system which provides a virtual consultation room, a virtual waiting room, a virtual nursing room and a virtual individual conversation room depending upon the desired operation although the system does not provide for actual treatment. [5]


[edit] Name change

News articles occasionally differ in the spelling/pronunciation of his last name. The confusion apparently began in 2002 when Nozomu Saruhashi became upset after seeing his name printed in an article phonetically rendered in katakana as Template:Nihongo, which Saruhashi saw as deliberately emphasizing the first character in his name (猿), which means "monkey." He then shocked the staff the next day by insisting his surname was henceforth Sahashi.[6]

[edit] Financial crisis and downfall

Sahashi was the company's long standing President and CEO until 2007. During the governmental restrictions and a financial crisis in late 2007, Nozomu Sahashi refused to resign from the top post at the largest English-language school operator in Japan over the scandal involving exaggerated advertisements. His refusal came in response to a call for his resignation from Nova shareholders who asked him at their annual meeting to resign to take responsibility for the scandal, which has led to a government order partially suspending Nova's business operations. He said, "If I resign, the company will collapse," during a meeting in Osaka. Sahashi apologized for causing the disciplinary action by the government and said Nova has created a management reform committee to investigate the scandal and consider how best to avoid scandals in the future. The committee, consisting of four experts on corporate compliance, will compile an interim report by the end of July and a final one by the end of August, he said. The committee is expected to look into Sahashi's responsibility and other issues related to the scandal.

Sahashi was removed as president by an emergency board meeting for failing to adequately explain his "opaque way of fundraising and negotiating with potential business alliance partners."[7]. The early-morning executive meeting at Nova headquarters on October 26 2007 left control over the company to the remaining executives Anders Lundqvist, Shoichi Watanabe, and Hitomi Yoshizato.

According to the Daily Yomiuri, Sahashi made 159 million yen in 2006, even though his company lost 2.9 billion yen. The Mainichi Shimbun reported that Sahashi and his family's stock in the company rapidly declined over a two week period in September 2007, from holdings of 70% to 20%. It is believed this was done without filing a legally required report. A possible criminal complaint will be filed with legal authorities by receivers for Nova if it is proven Sahashi sold the stock without first filing the required report with authorities.In 1997, Sahashi paid 900 million yen in taxes, the fifth-highest paying taxpayer in the country.[1]

[edit] Criminal investigations and arrest

Sahashi came under scrutiny almost immediately after the collapse of Nova when court appointed administrators of the company allowed the media inside the president's luxury suite at Nova's administrative headquarters in Osaka to show "an example of (Sahashi) using the company to benefit himself."[8]The office, a 330-square-meter executive suite on the 20th floor housed a red-carpeted reception room, private quarters including a dining room with a large-screen TV, a bathroom with sauna, a Japanese-style tea room and a room with a double bed. Sahashi immediately submitted a petition to a local court rebutting allegations that he had used company assets to benefit his own wealth and lifestyle.[9]

In February 2008, Police announced they were investigating Sahashi for aggravated breach of trust for using his position to reap profits for his affiliated company, Ginganet, which he also controlled. Ginganet sold the TV-phone sets system to Nova in addition to leasing the Ginganet-managed server for the video-phone lessons. The investigation has revealed Ginganet had illicitly received around 500 million yen in profits from Nova for the use of the server. The bankruptcy administrator had also earlier noted that the price of the TV-telephone devices Ginganet charged Nova was unreasonably high, which could have resulted in Nova losing several billion yen. [10]

In June 2008 police also announced they were investigating Sahashi for possible embezzlement in the course of business for his ordering the transfer of the entire balance of a separately managed employee fund to a Nova business account to allow the payment of refunds to students. Sahashi, who owned the affiliate firm that handled the money transfer, did so in July 2007 to cover operating costs and done without the approval of employees. Nova employees had made monthly contributions from their pay to fund a mutual aid organization that covered the costs of business trips and occasions of congratulations or condolence. Rarely used, it had an accumulated balance of 300 million yen at the time of the transfer.[11]

On the same day that Investigators raided Nova Kikaku's former headquarters, Sahashi along with former president and accounting manager of Nova Kikaku Toshihiko Murata[12], were arrested on June 24, 2008 [13]and questioned about misappropriation of funds. While Sahashi acknowledged that the fund was under his control he denied any wrongdoing and on July 30, 2008 he announced his intention to plead not-guilty.[14] Murata, reputed to be Sahashi's right-hand man, reportedly admitted to allegations of embezzlement in the conduct of business.[14]

[edit] External links

[edit] Reference

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  6. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named saruhashi
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  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 {{ |url= |title= |accessdate= |publisher= |date= }}
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