CEO of Legato Ltd Leads LUJ Seminar

Written by Yingzhu Lai

Lakeland University Japan (LUJ) welcomed Mr. Makoto Noda to present to postgraduate students on June 9th 2026, as part of this summer’s Leadership Seminars. Mr. Noda is the CEO of Legato Ltd and serves as an advisor for Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and is the company’s former General Manager of the Innovation Department.

Mr. Noda was invited to speak as part of Professor Yasuaki Mori’s postgraduate course, LO710 –Leadership Seminar: Systems Theory, Adaptive and Servant Leadership. . Delivered with the translation assistance of LUJ Vice President, Dr. Anderson Passos, the presentation offered profound insights into global business strategy, cross-cultural management, and corporate innovation. After graduating from the Department of Chinese Language at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies in 1984 and working for a specialty valve manufacturer, Mr. Noda joined KHI in 1989. By 1992, he became the youngest overseas office manager at the company’s overseas headquarters. During a 13-year tenure in China, he led localization initiatives and established KHI’s first local subsidiary.

In 2017, Mr. Noda proposed and established KHI’s Innovation Department, eventually collaborating with over 1,300 startup companies to identify synergies, develop new opportunities, and promote an internal culture of innovation. He shared several guiding principles with the students, including the beliefs that “Open minds drive innovation,” and that “In 30 years, humanity will be the value” to corporations.

A central focus of the seminar was training the entrepreneurial spirit. Mr. Noda challenged the audience to rethink how business ideas are formed, noting that an idea is not merely a concept, but something created in the middle of strategy and decision-making. To navigate this, he outlined four key methods of thinking:

● Design Thinking to understand market needs and solve problems.
● Creative Thinking to generate ideas without framework boundaries.
● Logical Thinking to draw conclusions based on data and facts.
● Bias Thinking to eliminate unconscious bias and analyze trends.

Students were introduced to a structured methodology for business planning, starting from finding a dream or issue, converting it into a concrete idea, designing the business plan, and developing a core business model. Mr. Noda emphasized that a comprehensive plan must evaluate customer needs, market size, the surrounding ecosystem, and competitive frameworks like SWOT and Porter’s Five Forces. Ultimately, the goal of this process is to organize and clarify the business so it can be effectively conveyed to a growth ecosystem.

For LUJ undergraduate and postgraduate students, attending these Leadership Seminars offers real-world insights. By engaging directly with an executive who successfully bridged a legacy industrial giant with over 1,300 agile startups, students gain a highly practical understanding of how to foster development in modern corporate environments. Connecting with seasoned experts like Mr. Noda allows students to refine their own entrepreneurial ideas and develop the specialized strategic thinking required to navigate global markets and emerging technologies, directly elevating their M.B.A. and M.S. academic experience.

Lakeland University Japan’s Leadership Seminars are open to all undergraduate and postgraduate students.