Jun Sawada

Jun Sawada (沢田 純) is a Japanese businessman, Chairman of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), the third largest telecommunications company in the world in terms of revenue, since June 2018.

Early life and education
Jun Sawada was born on 30 July 1955.

Career
Sawada joined NTT in April 1978, and has held various senior positions at the company. He succeeded Hiroo Unoura as CEO in June 2018.

On 10 April 2024, Sawada was among the guests invited to the state dinner hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden in honor of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House.

Chairman of NTT (2022-)
On May 12, 2022, Jun Sawada was appointed Chairman with representative authority, and Vice President Akira Shimada was promoted to President. Regarding Sawada, Isao Horikoshi of Nikkei Crosstech said, "The last four years have been full of surprises with the bold reforms that Sawada has implemented, starting with the restructuring of the overseas business, the announcement of the next-generation information and communications infrastructure "IOWN" concept, the capital and business alliance with NEC, the acquisition of NTT Docomo as a wholly owned subsidiary, and the recent merger of NTT Limited with NTT Data. Sawada, who was also called a 'disruptor' for refreshing the atmosphere of the conservative NTT Group, was a manager with a bold vision, speedy execution, and strong mental strength." This is the first time in about 30 years that a person has become chairman with representative authority after serving as president at NTT. He is the eighth president of NTT, which was privatized in 1985. This is the first time that a person has become chairman with representative authority after retiring as president since the second president, Kaisei Yamaguchi (1988-1990). In June 2024, he will relinquish his representative rights and become chairman of the board of directors. As he mentions in his book "Paraconsistent World," Sawada seems to have a special attachment to world expositions. When the World Expo was held in Osaka in 1970, Sawada, who was a junior high school student at the time, recalled that he lived near the venue and frequently attended the expo, and was excited by the technology of the future, and said, "This time, I want to show future technology to children."

President and CEO of NTT (2018-2022)
Appointed president of NTT on April 27, 2018. He has a long history in the planning department at the subsidiary NTT Communications, and in 2014 became vice president of NTT, supporting Unoura as a business strategy officer.

In addition, there used to be an implicit rule that NTT's top executives were alternately people from administrative and technical backgrounds, but since former president Norio Wada took office in 2002, three consecutive generations of people from administrative backgrounds have been top executives, making this the first time in a long time that a technical person has been appointed to the top position. Although Sawada is from a technical background, he has been involved in M&A with several overseas companies, including the acquisition of South African IT giant Dimension Data in 2010, and has played a leading role in strengthening overseas business, which NTT Group has set as a key goal in its medium-term strategy.

Sawada, who is the first person from a technical background to take office as president in 16 years, has stated his aspirations, saying, "I understand the feelings of the engineers on the ground. I hope I can bridge the gap between the administrative and technical fields." At the press conference for his inauguration as president, he continued the management policy of the Ura administration and maintained the same slogan as before, "Your Value Partner." "We will be a valuable partner that continues to be chosen by our clients. We will continue this policy while adding new developments and contribute to the development and growth of the NTT Group. We will strive to become a company that contributes to our shareholders, Japanese society, and global society." In addition, the new mid-term management strategy has three main points: supporting our clients' digital transformation, promoting our own digital transformation, and utilizing our people, technology, and assets. Furthermore, he said, "Our competitors in overseas business will be Deloitte, Accenture, and IBM," and "We need to further increase the competitiveness of our overseas business. In order to clarify our added value, internal process reform will be important."

Awards and honors
On June 24, 2024, Sawada was awarded an Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) by His Majesty King Charles III, the first person affiliated with NTT. As President and CEO of NTT Group along with other senior executive roles, Sawada has led active investment in UK businesses and made a significant contribution to strengthening business relations between Japan and the UK.

On April 22, 2024, at the Sun & Star Legacy Awards Dinner hosted by the Dallas-Fort Worth Japan-America Society at the Omni Frisco Hotel in Frisco, Texas, the Sun & Star Legacy Award was granted in recognition of the company's proactive efforts and outstanding achievements in strengthening Japan-U.S. relations.

Personal life
He graduated from Suita Municipal First Junior High School and went on to Kyoto Prefectural Katsura High School. He practiced martial arts at high school and was a member of the American football club at Kyoto University.

Sawada serves as the representative director of the Kyoto Institute of Philosophy which was established with the participation of a diverse range of people from industry, government, academia, and the public, both in Japan and overseas, in the historical and cultural city of Kyoto, with the aim of forming an internationally appealing movement that aims to create a multi-layered society of values through the proposal of diverse values.

Publications
"Paraconsistent World: Between Life and IT, with the Next-Generation Communication IOWN" (NTT Publishing, 2021)