Winding Paths to Success

11Homecoming

When we are young, ambitious, and filled with youthful hope, we haven an innate desire to explore the world. Particularly strong was the exploratory desire of Chikako Matsumoto, a first‐generation college graduate hailing from Osaka where her father had founded and operated a small business. Her desire motivated her to follow the path of Sadako Ogata, former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Hard work, reinforced by determination, led her to Harvard Kennedy School and eventually to a permanent position at the World Bank in Washington, DC.

Counter to one's exploratory desire is a gravitational force pulling people back to their roots. A wish for proximity to family and a sense of duty to contribute at home never fully disappears, however hundreds of miles away from home one may be. Matsumoto never forgets that she stands on the foundation of previous generations, both personally and as a nation; as a child she lived through the economic ascent of post‐WWII industrialized Japan, the backdrop on which her father's manufacturing export business prospered.

Eighteen years later, after she left Japan for Harvard Kennedy School, Matsumoto made a homecoming, girded with nine years of working experience at the World Bank under her belt. What was originally a temporary return ended up becoming permanent. Ultimately, the juxtaposition of these two opposing forces—one out to the wider world and one back to Japan—resulted in a happy ending. Matsumoto, who has built ...