About Aaron: Aaron Meltzer (’23) is a second year at UCLA Anderson. Prior to Anderson, he was a consultant at Slalom Consulting in Los Angeles. He came to Anderson to pivot into product management and get his toes wet in entrepreneurship. In his spare time, you can find Aaron playing tennis, bouldering/rock climbing, watching anime, or biking around LA.
This summer I am interning as a product manager in Tokyo, Japan, at Rakuten. Many people know Rakuten from their sponsorship on either the FC Barcelona or Golden State Warriors jerseys, but in Japan, they are well known as a tech giant. I learned about this position while browsing MyCareer (Anderson’s job listings) one day and stumbled upon this role in Japan. I knew I wanted to try product management and I had fallen in love with Japan four years earlier on a work trip, so I figured why not apply. I ended up getting the position and was told there was a 70% chance I would be able to do the internship in Tokyo due to uncertainty around securing my work visa. I decided to take the gamble. After ten weeks of filling out forms and a lot of waiting, I got my official 3-month visa as an “engineering specialist” four days before my internship was due to start.
Fast forward four days and I’m now living in Tokyo near Tokyo Tower, a big tourist attraction. Rakuten set me up with an apartment (thank goodness), where the kitchen is a hallway, there’s a tv in the bathtub, and the toilet has a seat warmer and cleaning feature. I was so excited to start my journey. There was a small adjustment period, but I quickly learned my way around the city, got acquainted with my team at work, and started eating my way through Tokyo.
Rakuten offers an ecosystem of products that help consumers in Japan (and expanding globally) in almost every key function in their life – finance, travel, e-commerce, entertainment, and even sports. For this internship, I have been able to help create a new product within Rakuten’s sports business department, called Rakuten Academy. The project aims to give kids access to top sports learning content and to mentors like Andres Iniesta, Yuto Horigome, and hopefully Steph Curry. Through a digital platform with videos and personalized coaching, kids can improve their gameplay and supplement their physical training. This project aligns with the sports business unit’s goal of democratizing sports by supporting amateur athletes. In my 9 weeks here, I am helping define the team’s long-term vision and am leading the product development of a key feature, one-on-one consultation, where a kid can submit videos of his training/game play and have a coach annotate and respond to the video with feedback and tips.
The internship is about a 40-minute commute from Akabanebashi station to Futako-Tamagaway station, with one line transfer. Having lived 6 years in New York, I was a bit worried about the commute. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that trains are impeccably clean, they come every 3 minutes without a hiccup, and people are always polite and silent. Every day I get to the office, queue in a very long, organized line for the elevators, and start my day. My work has been very interesting: learning about company culture, eating fermented soybeans at lunch (called natto), leading brainstorming sessions, and participating in team happy hours. My team, Rakuten Academy, is very global. We have two Japanese natives, two people from France, one from Poland, one Spaniard, and me, a Mexican American. Although my team is very global, the rest of the company is more Japanese than I anticipated. Not many people speak even conversational English, the company culture is very hierarchical, and there are some strict rules. For example, you must always place the company badge on the left side, and it is mandatory for every employee to read Hiroshi Mikitani’s (the CEO) book.
Outside of work, I’ve been able to explore Japan a bit during a unique time when the borders are not yet open for tourism. I’ve done interesting things like going to an owl café, skydiving, fishing for my food at a restaurant, and I even attended a sumo tournament. In the next couple of weeks, I plan on climbing Mt. Fuji, scuba diving with manta rays, and stuffing my face with all the sushi I can before I head back to the real world. For anyone considering working/living abroad, I highly recommend trying it at least once.
Student Blogger: Aaron Meltzer '23
Undergrad: New York University ‘16
Pre-MBA: Consultant, Slalom Consulting
Leadership@Anderson: VP of D48s & External Relations, Entrepreneurship Association