Balance sheet.

• Author: Heffes, Ellen M.
• Position: Dialogue with Shaun Dubin - Interview

For Shaun Dubin--who experienced Japan's Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011 and its aftershocks--the significant events have 7 strengthened his connection with Japan as he volunteered in the reconstruction efforts.

TITLE President

COMPANY Superior Design Inc., for seven years, a software design, development and implementation company. It started as a software training and project management firm and turned into a holding company to incorporate my wife's design business.

I have always been interested in being the bridge between Japan and the U.S., so I separated the project management service into Global Project Solutions, which launched this year.

BORN Merion, Pa. (a Philadelphia suburb), July 1966.

SPOUSE Minako

CHILDREN Momona, high school age.

EDUCATION BSEE Degree, 1989, MBA, Finance and International Business, 1993, Drexel University; Myers-Briggs Type Indicator certified.

CAREER Starting my career at DuPont in Seaford, De., I had the opportunity to work in the largest nylon manufacturing plant in the world. Over five years I put my engineering skills to use both on paper and on the factory floor, and managed 30 operators.

With my MBA, I joined the purchasing department of the electronics division of Ford Motor Co., where automobile telematics was being developed and Ford had some exciting initiatives. What I learned then is still applicable to my business and my work for clients.

Ultimately, I wanted to move into product management and needed sales experience, so I joined NEC Electronics to sell micro controllers and panel displays. Though I had studied the Japanese language and culture since the end of college, and visited Japan on vacations, it was at NEC that I experienced very active business use of these skills.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

My chance to move into product management in software came and I moved to Marcam Solutions in the Boston, Mass., area. I then moved to Inktomi (the search engine company famous before Google Inc.) as product manager for its content delivery suite. Though exciting, it ended in the 2001 dot-com bubble.

I initially started my business developing websites and offering project management in the U.S., subsequently moving to Tokyo in 2003 and incorporated my company in Japan in 2006.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chair of the Special Presidential Task Force focusing on SMEs; vice chair of the Foreign Direct Investment Committee, American Chamber of...