Greetings everyone. I am Masahiro Kihara, President and Group CEO of Mizuho Financial Group. Thank you for participating in today's IR Select event, which covers two topics, sustainability and corporate culture transformation. Yasuhiko Ushikubo will cover the first topic. He has been leading industry research in Mizuho over the years, with also close networks with government offices and now in the position of Group Chief Sustainability Officer. Mr. Ushikubo is therefore preeminent in the field of sustainability within our company, and he will be using this opportunity here today to go over Mizuho's initiatives. Additionally, as I have mentioned repeatedly since I have assumed the position of President and Group CEO, corporate culture transformation is a theme of the utmost importance. I therefore believe that creating a corporate culture which encourage our employees to take on new challenges, and within this context, diversity is also extremely important.
Given all the backgrounds, we welcomed Natsumi Akita as Group Chief People Officer in May 2022. Last year, we have received feedbacks from employee-driven working group in Mizuho that have discussed agendas including corporate culture, action policies, and ways to carry out work for six months. Within this, we have received a proposal that it would be beneficial to create a dedicated position to oversee and tackle issues related to corporate culture. My personal thoughts aligned with this proposal, and this led us to establish Ms. Akita's new position as Group Chief Culture Officer and Group Chief People Officer. Ms. Akita has ample experience in the corporate world, including having worked at a number of global companies, so we have great expectations for her work and believe she will explore and nurture diverse points of view since diversity is a pivotal aspect of corporate culture.
As I mentioned earlier, I believe enacting changes to corporate culture at Mizuho to be tremendously important, and this is why we have asked Ms. Akita to assume the position as the Group Chief Culture Officer. I will conclude my remarks here. I believe issues of sustainability and corporate culture transformation to be the two most important management challenges for us to tackle. I hope this opportunity here today to discuss these issues and exchange thoughts, opinions, and feedback with stakeholders to be a very positive thing. Due to my schedule, I won't be able to stay for the entire event, but I nevertheless hope we will be seeing an active and productive discussion surrounding today's agenda topics.
Thank you for your time. I am Yasuhiko Ushikubo, Group Chief Sustainability Officer of Mizuho Financial Group. Thank you for taking the time off your busy schedules to view today's presentation.
First, I will be discussing the group's sustainability initiatives. Please turn to page four. Let me discuss about our group's sustainability promotion structure and to share my thoughts and commitment on the topic of sustainability. We have revisited our sustainability structure-related organization in September 2022. Prior to this, we were already working on sustainability initiatives, however, in a more scattered and less centralized basis. We decided to centralize these various functions and knowledge into a more integrated structure. My job, overseen directly by Group CEO, is to supervise sustainability initiatives, and we have established two new departments. The first being the Sustainable Business Promotion Department, which is tasked with promoting the formulation of initiatives related to sustainable business for Mizuho as a whole. Shinichi Tsunoda, the General Manager of this department, has a long track record as strategic corporate finance advisor in the regions of Japan, EMEA, and ASEAN.
On the other hand, the Sustainability Planning Department is responsible for setting policy in terms of the group's overall sustainability strategy as it pertains to issues like climate change, human rights, etc. This department is headed by Yuko Hirano, who is a specialist in this field with a career over 10 years. Discussions take place between these two departments, with the Sustainability Promotion Committee and Executive Management Committee periodically reporting back to the Board of Directors. Finally, the Board of Directors and the Risk Committee stand at the apex of this structure and play a supervisory role. Next is page five, where I would like to discuss my personal thoughts and commitment on the topic of sustainability. The title of this slide is as follows: Mizuho's role in the promotion of sustainability and the text box with the navy colored describe Mizuho's role.
Important keywords and pHRases here are the development of our clients and of society, a medium to long-term perspective, discussions that hold nothing back, and industrial and business restructuring. Shown here are also tHRee foundational factors working together to support Mizuho's role. These tHRee are DNA, behavior patterns, and our strengths. The first two factors of DNA and behavior patterns reflect the philosophies of Mizuho's founding fathers, such as Shibusawa Eiichi and Yasuda Zenjiro, among others. Which are an integral part of our corporate DNA and identity. In other words, as it's shown on the slide, we are aiming for the development of our clients and of society and consider sustainability and take action together with our outside parties. This philosophy and behavior is part of our corporate DNA. In addition, we seek to leverage our strengths to address a number of challenges.
More specifically, we are referring to strengths in the form of knowledge and expertise Mizuho has, not only in finance, but also in other fields that extend beyond finance. We seek to integrate and leverage these strengths in a seamless manner, allowing us to unlock great potential. As shown on the bottom section of this page, we had historically supported such initiatives in the past, especially as part of industrial restructuring and globalization, et cetera. Now we would like to further expand these efforts with the new perspective of sustainability. As Group CEO mentioned earlier, I have been responsible for overseeing industry research for a number of years, and in addition to the promotion of sustainability, I am also head of the Research & Consulting Unit.
Within my remit, we have Industry Research Department and environmental consulting group within Mizuho Research & Technologies, and the aforementioned two sustainability departments, incorporating RCU functionalities are operating in an integrated manner. Naturally, addressing clients' sustainability needs is our top priority, but additionally, we also want to take more of a medium to long-term perspective in solving issues, namely predicting the correct course in changing Japan's future industrial structure and the competitive positioning of each one of our clients within this future vision. Decarbonization is an incredibly huge and complex topic, so achieving this target is by no means easy. However, this represents a global paradigm shift that extends beyond Japan. Against this backdrop, we would like to approach this issue also from a different perspective, namely that of devising ways encouraging for a recovery of industry in Japan, which continues on a steady decline from its heyday.
I would now like to discuss concrete topics in more detail, starting on page seven, with the topic of addressing climate change. There are many challenges to be tackled within the scope of sustainability. Among these, a topic frequently brought up by our clients is climate change and the shift toward a decarbonized society. These are therefore priority issues. Given the way financial institutions work, supporting our clients' decarbonization also translates into progress in our own transition, which is the concept of financed emissions. The sectors shown here are representative of heavy industry and correspond to sectors with comparatively higher transition risks when it comes to the context of decarbonization. Mizuho has strong client relationships with these sectors, which represent a large business chances for us, while conversely, from a different perspective, these could also represent a large risk for us.
With that being said, carbon neutrality for Japan as a whole could not be absolutely realized without transition on the part of these sectors and industries. We view the acts of supporting our clients carry out this shift itself as a significant business opportunity for us. Page eight discusses the topic of sustainable finance, which has emerged in recent years as a way to facilitate decarbonization. I won't be going into the details here, Mizuho not only holds the top position among Japan's mega banks for sustainable finance loans and bonds but also maintains a strong position on a global basis. Please turn to page nine. Our duty as a financial institution is to provide financing to support clients' shift to decarbonization. At the same time, there is a need to keep the risks associated with this transition under control.
This dynamic is represented by the diagram on page nine, with the industry sectors we have as clients shown here on the vertical axis and the response to transition risk shown on the horizontal axis. This diagram therefore contains an evaluation along these two axes. We have formulated a framework to keep exposure to higher-risk areas like carbon-related sectors under control and, tHRough this, manage transition risk. Please turn to page 10, which discusses some of the key focus points when it comes to providing financing to companies with high transition risks. The first point is whether a credible transition strategy for the company has been formulated or not. Second is whether the proper transparency and governance structures are in place. Lastly, it is important to determine whether this strategy is feasible or not.
In light of this, it is significant for us, as a financial institution, to establish a framework to enable us to make firm determinations and good judgment on the points I just mentioned. Against this backdrop, Mizuho has developed and announced a framework to confirm the credibility and transparency of clients' transition strategies. THRough this framework, we seek to carry out engagement in depth with clients and actively supply the financing to support the transition in our clients' business structure. To achieve this, engagement is an important factor, as discussed on page 11. We carry out a dialogue and conversations in depth with clients at least once a year, and within this process, we assess our clients' progress on addressing transition risk. As you can see, steady progress has been made in the past year.
Going forward, we will continue to offer robust support for our clients' transition, while at the same time disclosing the progress status of our efforts to address transition risks, increasing transparency. Please turn to page 12, which contains business topics. One of Mizuho's strengths in the promotion of sustainable business is its broad client base. Another strength is the competitive advantage in terms of industrial finance we have developed over the years. Furthermore, as I earlier mentioned, we want to leverage the expertise from Industry Research Department and Mizuho Research & Technologies consulting capabilities in a forward-looking perspectives. We want to work closely together with our clients from the very first stage of proposal formulation for transition strategies and offer an integrated approach all the way tHRough offering financing in order to implement said strategies.
As shown on the bottom half of the page, we seek the enhancement of financial intermediation function, which makes possible structural changes in the Japanese economy, the development and commercialization of new technologies necessary for the execution of this transition. This initiatives is not limited to large corporations, but also extending to SMEs, and it also may enable to expand the initiatives outside of Japan. Starting on page 13, we would like to go over examples of initiatives we have recently carried out. Transition to decarbonization is not an easy step and consequently requires a number of innovations that have yet to take place. Against this backdrop, a variety of forms of risk capital, such as equity investment, is necessary to support to get these innovations off the ground during the seed funding stage.
Based on this principle, last year, Mizuho established a framework for transition investment, as shown on the left-hand side of the diagram on page 13. The first investment deal was launched in December 2022, which is an investment of JPY 300 million in a startup in the biomanufacturing field. We are pleased that we have received a large number of inquiries from clients regarding this financing framework. In terms of the content of these inquiries, there is a wide variety of layers, stages, and fields. In order to address the needs of our clients in a more detailed and bespoke manner, we have recently established new investment facility to co-create value with our clients. This involves offering support, including equity investment, to clients that are at a later stage than those companies that make use of our transition investment facility.
Naturally, this isn't restricted to the domain of sustainability, but we would like to operate these two financing facilities in an integrated manner and address our clients' diverse needs. I would briefly touch on page 14, but here we are highlighting that we are supporting clients' development and procurement of renewable energy in collaboration with our group companies. Please turn to page 15. The general perception is that decarbonization efforts fall primarily on large companies. However, for Japan to achieve its net carbon neutrality target, the contribution from SMEs is of the utmost importance. We have included here an example of positive impact finance. Within this, we have leveraged our expertise developed in our interactions with large companies in order to reduce the burden borne by SMEs. We therefore offer new services to this end. Please turn to page 16.
We will be addressing client needs and tackle emission targets alongside our clients. In this context, Mizuho intends to carry out efforts toward achieving carbon neutrality by the year 2050. From this point of view and towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, last year, we established Scope 3 targets pertaining to electric power, oil and gas, and coal mining. In light of global agreements reached at COP26 and 27, the targets for the coal mining sector are for the achievement of net zero emissions in OECD economies by fiscal year 2030 and by fiscal year 2040 in non-OECD economies. Please turn to page 17, which discusses contributions to a variety of rulemaking efforts.
For example, PCAF Japan Coalition, for which Mizuho Financial Group was appointed as a regional chair in Japan. Another initiative is shown here on the right, which is mainly conducted by the Research & Consulting Unit. We publish a variety of reports in a timely manner and offer a wide range of expertise to clients and to society. In particular, in December 2022, we published a report on topics other than climate change, with a special focus on sustainability in the form of a compilation of issues and opinions. Please turn to page 19. Up until now, I have primarily discussed the topic of decarbonization. Naturally, Mizuho is also carrying out initiatives on other various topics as well. As shown on page 19, these include initiatives pertaining to natural capital and the conservation of biodiversity.
The group participates in the TNFD forum for future disclosure of information on natural capital. We are carrying out an analysis within this scope, the results of which we will be announcing next fiscal year, 2023. Another important theme is the respect for human rights. We revised the group's human rights policy in May of last year and issued a human rights report in July of the same year as the first financial institution in Japan. As shown on the right-hand side of the page, in November of last year, we started collaboration with the London Stock Exchange Group, and tHRough solutions offered by Refinitiv, which is a subsidiary of the LSE Group. We support our clients in conducting human rights due diligence. Let me discuss my thoughts on the topic of human resources to support sustainability initiatives.
Mizuho has a vast number of experts, such as in the aforementioned Industry Research Department and Mizuho Research & Technologies, as well as in the form of the finance teams within the bank and the securities. Offering training to employees and having them grow as experts is important. For Mizuho to further enhance and expand initiatives toward the promotion of sustainability, it is important for each and every employee to have sufficient knowledge about the topic of sustainability. We therefore believe it is of the utmost importance for each employee to view this challenge as something that affects them and to work towards sustainability goals. Upon taking up the position as the Group Chief Sustainability Officer, I have leveraged a variety of opportunities to carry out messaging to raise employee awareness at the individual level. With that being said, I believe there is still room for improvement.
Going forward, I would like to continue focusing on and carrying out initiatives in this regard. This concludes my presentation. Thank you for your time.
Greetings, everyone. I am Natsumi Akita, Group Chief People Officer and Chief Culture Officer of the Mizuho Financial Group. Thank you for taking the time off your busy schedules to view today's presentation session. Allow me to introduce myself. Please turn to page two. I joined Mizuho in May 2022, first as Group Chief People Officer, a position which entails overseeing the group's overall human resources and organizational development, health and productivity management, and lastly, the promotion of diverse human resources to participate actively in the organization.
As Group CEO Kihara mentioned earlier, in December 2022, I additionally took on the position of Group Chief Culture Officer within the scope of which I oversee corporate culture reform and the promotion of active communication. Before joining Mizuho, I was the vice president at the Japan subsidiary of the U.S. IT company, Adobe, where I was responsible for marketing and public relationships in Japan, along with promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and working to foster a free and open organizational culture. Prior to that, I worked for nearly 20 years in the financial industry at financial institutions, both in Japan and outside of Japan, where I specialized primarily in the domains of marketing communication and also digital. Please turn to page tHRee. Since joining the company, one thing people always ask me is what made me join Mizuho.
I would therefore like to take this opportunity to answer this question. By a turn of fate, I was approached by and had the opportunity to talk to several senior executives and employees prior to my entering the company. During these talks, I had the opportunity to hear their deep sense of loyalty and dedication to Mizuho, and also their expression of a need to make changes at this organization. These resonated with me and engendered in me a desire to work alongside the people at Mizuho. The five bullet points shown on the left are a review of my career to date and a summary of the ways my previous work experience can be of use to Mizuho. First, I have experience working at several global companies in the domains of IT and finance, and I learned best practices for changing corporate culture firsthand.
Second, I experienced working alongside some of the world's top 10 ranked CEOs and CMOs, that is, chief marketing officers. In doing so, I had the opportunity to observe in detail their ways of thinking and of communicating. I believe this experience will be of value for my work at Mizuho. Third, I led a highly diverse team over a period of several years. This naturally included gender diversity, but also diversity in terms of experience, age, ethnic background, etc. Over the years, I managed a highly diverse organization. I believe I can leverage this experience at Mizuho. Fourth, I experienced a variety of tough days as I continued carrying out my professional life while at the same time raising children. I would like to freely discuss my experiences in this regard while dedicating efforts toward training up the next generation of women leaders.
Lastly, I believe I will be able to leverage my expertise in the marketing and communication fields in the domain of HR. I won't be going over the details here, but at overseas, there is already a trend to integrate marketing and HR, and I would like to leverage my experience in this domain to benefit Mizuho. I already had a long-standing sense of familiarity with Mizuho as a user of its services, and as I mentioned earlier, the desire on the part of the executive officers and the employees to make changes resonated with me. Moreover, should Mizuho prosper, I believe this will have an overall positive effect on Japanese companies overall. It was therefore with these thoughts and expectations that I decided to join Mizuho. Please turn to page four. Shown here is a summary of the reality of Mizuho after joining.
To be honest with you, upon joining Mizuho, I was pleasantly surprised by a number of things. The left-hand side of the page contains a summary of how Mizuho is generally perceived. In fact, in March of last year, when it was announced that I would be joining Mizuho, many of my peers held some concerns and wondered if I would be able to join an inward-looking organization. However, upon joining Mizuho, I was pleasantly surprised to see that perceptions were not always true. The right-hand side of the page contains a list of things that were different from this perception prior to my joining Mizuho. Homogeneity is a word often used to describe Mizuho, and in fact, Japanese companies overall, as this is a challenge common to companies in this country.
Indeed, there is a commonality in terms of personnel attributes, one thing I have been able to observe working with Mizuho executives and employees is their strong sense of curiosity and interest outside of Mizuho, and always welcome to incorporate positive traits and aspects into Mizuho. Additionally, Mizuho's promotion of mid-career hiring is actually extremely active. As I will be discussing later on in this presentation, 529 mid-career hires joined Mizuho in fiscal year 2022. We ask new members joining Mizuho to fill in a survey, I would like to share some of the results with you later on in this presentation. Next is the topic of Mizuho's culture and history. Mizuho is perceived as having a sense of maintaining the mindset of legacy banks, a perception found in magazines and other media.
Upon joining Mizuho, what I found out was, as Mizuho struggling so seriously not to be seen in an image of those legacy banks, Mizuho rather intentionally erased the old legacy banks characteristics for over the past 20 years. Myself included, at least 80% of employees have joined Mizuho after the merger. In terms of challenges, I believe this is something facing all large companies. In Mizuho's case, the group boasts a total of approximately 70,000 employees in Japan and overseas. Within the course of executing a variety of initiatives, it is therefore difficult to spread and share them to all employees. As such, there is a need to send out the message furthermore, both internally and externally. Please turn to page five. In this page, we discuss our approach to initiatives towards the sustainable growth of Mizuho and its employees.
Mizuho views human resources as the most important capital, with the ideal being a state in which each employee can grow in their own way within an inclusive organizational structure, allowing for a diverse human resources to work actively. THRough this, we seek to offer sustainable value to our clients and to society at large. To this end, we are working to secure and further expand human capital. By executing a two-pronged approach consisting of investment in human capital, coupled with corporate culture transformation, we believe this will allow us to create an environment that encourages employees to speak and act freely, and become an organization that allows self-driven action and constructive discussion. We believe doing this will allow for the sustainable enhancement of our people and the organization, ultimately translating into the sustainable growth of Mizuho. Please turn to page six.
I play a number of roles within my position as both Chief People Officer and Chief Culture Officer. As Chief People Officer, as shown on the left-hand side of the page, and as I mentioned earlier, I focus my efforts on human resource and organizational development, the promotion of diversity and inclusion, and on furthering employee engagement. As Chief Culture Officer, I want to address and make progress toward culture transformation and revitalizing communication. With that being said, people and culture are not an independent things, but rather two inseparable elements. I view my two responsibilities are also intimately connected and could not be separated. Within this, I want to carry out focused efforts on dialoguing with employees and hear their thoughts and desires. There are some initiatives already being worked on, which I would like to go over starting on page seven.
In this slide, titled Initiatives to Encourage Diverse Personnel to Be Active, we highlight a number of initiatives. The first such initiative is MDIM, which stands for Mizuho Diversity and Inclusion Month. Enthusiastic employees plan events to work on the topic of diversity using the entire month of November every year to carry out such initiatives. In November of 2022, for example, we held 31 events for a total of 7,246 participants. Within the scope of this initiative, we have speakers from within and outside Mizuho. In fact, I had the honor of participating in several sessions myself and counted the presence of a number of female executives from other financial institutions. Within these events, participants speak freely about their experiences working in the finance industry. Another important aspect is mid-career hiring. The most recent number of mid-career hires stood at 529 people.
We view networking with and between mid-career hires to be important, so we carry out a variety of initiatives, like social gatherings, to help them have further active careers within Mizuho. The second bullet point shown here refers to ensuring diversity in management positions. Starting in September of last year, we implemented a mentor program in which executive officers offer mentoring over a six-month period. Additionally, I personally have taken the role of instructor, one of several, within the scope of training for newly appointed general managers and other training programs. Within this program, I try to share my experience and the things I have learned to the fullest extent possible. Lastly, I know many women in executive positions outside of Mizuho, so there is the opportunity to invite them to speak and lecture at Mizuho and convey their real experiences and stories in a conversational style.
Furthermore, we also offer networking opportunities. As such, we are taking an active approach to the cultivation of the next generation of women business leaders. Please turn to page eight. For reference purposes, here is the voice from the mid-career hires I discussed just now. We asked employees who newly joined Mizuho this fiscal year to fill in a survey regarding their impression of Mizuho. Some examples are shown here. Please bear in mind that we didn't cherry-pick only the positive feedback, but the fact is that employee opinions have been very positive. In fact, I think that perhaps it is easier for mid-career hires to see the good aspects of Mizuho after working at other companies, which was the case with me. Perhaps it's harder for those who have only worked at Mizuho to fully recognize its good aspects.
Additionally, I also believe that some aspects are impossible to observe from an outside perspective. As such, we invite you to browse the contents of this survey at your convenience. Next is page nine, which discusses initiatives to revitalize the organization. In recent years, the pursuit of a bottom-up organizational development approach has received much attention, which is to draw out the capabilities of the group from individual power as a whole. At Mizuho, starting the year before last, HR itself has started some initiatives by using itself as a sample on an experimental trial-and-error basis over the course of one year. Its trial includes various approaches such as using tools, dialogues, and so on. By trying many approaches and having external experts' support, we are driving our efforts with some self-motivated employees to further improve our organization.
Approximately 30 departments or offices participate in this development program this fiscal year. I also paid a visit in person to tHRee departments and offices participating in this program, talk with the participants, and carry out initiatives toward further improving the program. Additionally, we offer support for ERG, which stands for Employee Resource Group activities. Another topic I would like to discuss is the introduction of digital communication tools, as shown on the upper right-hand corner. We have introduced the use of Delve, Yammer, and Teams, and we are seeing the active sharing of information and opinions in this digital space as well. Already, over 100 communities have been established on these platforms, with the total number of users at over 8,000. These digital communities offer a casual platform in which to communicate and to seek advice on topics such as child-rearing, etc.
I myself am part of several communities and continue communicating tHRough these platforms. Mutual listening and mutual understanding are an indispensable part in fostering an inclusive culture and revitalizing the organization. As shown at the bottom, we carry out training sessions toward this end. Page 10 deals with initiatives to revisit work styles, which we are actively carrying out. We designated the months from July tHRough September last year as months for intensive efforts. More specifically, in July, we carried out training for relevant executive officers. This training leveraged a wide variety of data and perspectives, for example, from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and medicine, as well as data pertaining to Japan's population trends in order to explain the need for work style reform.
Building up on this, heads of each company, unit, and group, CUG for short, discussed what ways they want to change work styles, what changes they want to make to their organizations, and consequently, what to eliminate and change in order to achieve those goals. These ideas were expressed as commitment targets and compiled into a document. Based upon this, a total of five panel discussion sessions were held with the heads of each CUG. Furthermore, we also held tHRee similar sessions with general managers in order to get their feedback on the changes outlined by the CUG. These initiatives are not a one-time thing, as I believe it to be important to continue these discussions at the operational level.
In this context, we launched an initiatives in this January by having external consultants for the period tHRough to this September and started working to implement full-scale work style reform. Let me move on to the next topic, namely that of initiatives to revitalize communications. We keep in close contact and communication with overseas branches and offices, and also another initiative we place emphasis on is our alumni network. Last year, we invited former Mizuho alumni to an event held in a physical venue and heard their feedback of Mizuho from their perspective. We are therefore encouraging casual discussions and revitalization initiatives, and as a result, Mizuho achieved the grand prize in the Japan Alumni Awards 2022, held in last November. The various initiatives I have been mentioning all include an element of diversity and inclusion. Our initiatives have been recognized in the form of awards presented to us.
Mizuho was certified as best workplace within D&I Award 2022. Additionally, we received the top rank award of gold within PRIDE Index 2022. I would like to use this opportunity to introduce employees' voices. The employee shown here is an example of an alumni who ended up rejoining Mizuho. Ai Ikeda left Mizuho at one point to work at a government institution. Then came back to Mizuho again, bringing new values and leveraging the experience she had in this interim period. Another topic that has been in the limelight recently is that of dual work. Starting in 2019, Mizuho allows employees to engage in dual work with a large number of 540 employees making use of this option.
Against this backdrop, we have cases like that of Masashi Nakamoto, who is profiled here and who created and built up a business over the past tHRee years. He sold the business in January 2022 and now leverages the experience acquired in the process in his main occupation here at Mizuho. Mr. Nakamoto's initiative also had the positive effect of energizing his colleagues and those around him. I therefore believe these types of initiatives are producing positive feedback loops. The next page deals with the results of our employee survey, which we would like you take a look into them more in details later on. Some of the comments are positive, while others are severe, reminding us that we still have many things to be done. I personally went over each and every single piece of the voluminous feedback.
Naturally, it is impossible to solve all issues all at once. These initiatives would be taking place over the long term. I believe facing up to these challenges and working to address them is the very core definition of my professional duties. The results of this survey will be disclosed in due course. We hope you would wait for further details. Lastly, let me direct your attention to page 16, which discusses initiatives to transform the corporate culture. I drew upon my experience as a marketer in formulating the diagram shown here. Our aim is that of creating an environment that encourages employees to speak and act freely, and becoming an organization that allows self-driven action and constructive discussion. We aim to achieve this and fulfill the cycle shown here.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a need to grasp the current state and dialogue with employees. Within this scope, we would like to learn from examples from our corporate peers, including companies outside of Japan and in different industries, to determine what kind of initiatives are on the cutting edge. Moreover, we would like to analyze the data both quantitatively and qualitatively so that we can face properly with employees' voice. Another aspect that I believe to be important is coming up with creative initiatives and executing these with high frequency. In executing these, it is of the utmost importance for employees to be involved and motivated. Within this, we would like to highlight success cases and initiatives showing signs of bearing fruit.
These are called quick wins. We want to showcase these in order to raise awareness of our efforts, thereby creating a positive feedback loop resulting in increased cooperative support. Communication skills are essential, making sure we continue this cycle of dialogue and execution with indefatigable determination. After all, no matter how great these initiatives are, without being recognized, it means nothing. As such, it is vital for us to create a real sense that we are changing by sharing the message internally and externally. We have much work ahead of us, we intend to face each individual challenge and enact changes to corporate culture at Mizuho. This concludes my presentation. Thank you for your time.