Shiho Kurihara

I decided to join because I was drawn not only to advertising as a solution, but also to the opportunity to harness the power of creativity to develop a wide range of products, services, and businesses.

My goal is to succeed in creative work within a consulting firm. I also hope to help elevate the value of creativity across Japanese industry, starting from Baycurrent.

One project that left a particularly strong impression on me was a recruitment branding project for a client.
I carefully unpacked the client's business, organization, and culture, then worked to articulate and redefine—within the context of recruitment—exactly who the company was promising what to, and how. Rather than stopping at a recruitment strategy that leveraged the client's strengths, I supported the client end-to-end, from advertising production through the design and execution of PR initiatives.

Beyond external communications, I also went further into internal branding activities aimed at building genuine buy-in among employees. Through repeated on-the-ground interviews, we sharpened the language until it became a brand employees could speak about in their own words and put into practice internally. What made this project so rewarding, I feel, was aiming for a state where the recruitment effort itself became a driver of organizational change.

What made this challenge possible was the launch of our Interactive Group*. By bringing together specialized talent and in-house knowledge, we were able to combine consulting's analytical rigor with creative execution capability, delivering value that crossed conventional boundaries. It was a project where we expanded, with our own hands, the possibilities of "creative × consulting."
* Interactive Group: One of Baycurrent’s specialist organizations, bringing together experts in areas such as CX, marketing, and creative to deliver high value-added consulting services.

What makes the intersection of creativity and consulting so compelling is the ability to clarify a client’s situation, identify the true issues and strengths, and translate them into advertising expressions that resonate. Clients often start with a vague sense of challenge, so it can be difficult to articulate the key issues and design a winning approach based on dialogue, data, and insights from the field.
That is precisely why I feel a strong sense of accomplishment when the team brings together its knowledge to build the best solution, and ultimately I can leverage my strength in ad production to give it tangible form and deliver results.

Going forward, I want to make sure this kind of value creation doesn't stay a one-off effort, but grows into a true strength of Baycurrent's.
To get there, the first step is growing the team. As the Interactive Group brings together an even wider range of specialties, the value created by combining them will only expand further. From there, I want to build up frameworks and a track record project by project, so that we can deliver highly reproducible results even on larger-scale transformation themes.
Turning individual challenges into organizational capability—that's my theme right now.

I tend to spend my free time being active, and I regularly do CrossFit and Pilates.
I want to keep my strength and stamina up enough to be able to run while carrying my two children, just in case of an emergency.