The Reality of Launching a Start-Up Abroad with Fanny Berteaud of Selectra
Season 2 Episode 1
Listen to the episode here on Spotify or here on Apple.
Episode Description
She moved to Japan at 19 with no plan to stay — yet a decade later, she’s running Selectra’s Tokyo office and managing the Australian market too. In this episode of Founders in Jeans, host Emily Jean sits down with Fanny Berteaud, Country Manager at Selectra, for a conversation about building a career abroad, cultural adaptation, and leading global teams as a young woman in business.
🌍 Fanny’s journey from a small French town to Tokyo is filled with lessons about resilience, trust, and the power of curiosity. Whether you’re dreaming of moving overseas, scaling an international startup, or simply trying to balance career ambition with personal growth, this episode will challenge and inspire you.
🔑 What You’ll Learn in This Episode
From small-town France to Tokyo – why Fanny chose Japan and stayed.
Cultural shock in education – studying at Sciences Po vs Keio University.
Launching Selectra Japan from scratch – building teams, partnerships, and navigating bureaucracy.
Why being a foreigner was a bigger challenge than being a woman in Japan.
How business meetings differ across Japan, France, and Australia.
Managing across three languages – French, English, and Japanese.
What running a half marathon taught her about business resilience.
How sports like basketball and snowboarding shaped her leadership style.
Fanny’s favorite underrated Japanese dish and hidden travel destination.
The sacrifices and rewards of building a life abroad.
⏱ Time-Stamped Chapter Guide
00:00 – Emily’s intro and podcast updates
01:39 – Meet Fanny Berteaud: life from France to Japan
03:00 – How she introduces herself at parties
05:01 – Why Japan? The decision to stay abroad
05:37 – Academic culture shock: France vs Japan
07:05 – How she joined Selectra and started in Tokyo
10:42 – Falling in love with life in Japan
13:16 – The balance of safety and challenge in Tokyo
13:45 – The real challenge: being a foreigner in Japanese business
15:46 – Building Selectra Tokyo from scratch
19:31 – Expanding to Australia from Japan
22:46 – Managing across three languages and cultures
26:21 – Leadership evolution: not taking things personally
29:19 – Basketball, snowboarding, and resilience in sports
34:58 – Running a half marathon and the lessons it taught
38:28 – Rapid fire: favorite Japanese food, destination, and what she misses from France
41:27 – Where to connect with Fanny and Selectra
💬 Why Watch
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s really like to move abroad for work, scale a company in a foreign market, or manage multicultural teams, Fanny’s story offers a rare, honest perspective. She proves that success abroad isn’t just about professional skills—it’s about curiosity, resilience, and knowing how to create balance.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
If you enjoyed this conversation, hit like, leave a comment with your biggest takeaway, and subscribe to Founders in Jeans for more stories of women building businesses and claiming their worth.
⸻
💌 Build the life you deserve - on your own terms. Subscribe to the Founders in Jeans newsletter, the no-BS guide to startup life, consumer brands, and becoming your most confident, successful self, written by Emily Jean. Join 50,000+ women redefining wealth, community, and growth: https://foundersinjeans.beehiiv.com/subscribe
⸻
📌 Follow Emily Jean:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emily.jeans/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-jeans/
📌 Follow Founders in Jeans:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foundersinjeans/
📌 Follow Fanny Berteaud & Selectra:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fanny-berteaud-433691111/
Selectra Japan: https://selectra.jp
Selectra Australia: https://selectra.com.au
Keywords
entrepreneurship abroad, business in Japan, expat entrepreneur, women in leadership Japan, female founders podcast, startup in Tokyo, how to launch a business abroad, French entrepreneur Tokyo, Selectra Japan expansion, Fanny Berteaud Selectra, working abroad career, international startup growth, cultural differences in business, managing multicultural teams, building trust in global leadership, women in business abroad, career journey expat, France to Japan story, student exchange Japan, Sciences Po Keio, starting a career in Japan, leadership lessons female founders, running a startup in Japan, expanding into Australia, global business management, how to adapt abroad, cross-cultural communication, young leaders in business, resilience in leadership, expat success story, sports and business lessons, basketball and leadership, running half marathon lessons, snowboarding in Japan, Tokyo expat career, life as a foreigner in Japan, Japanese business culture explained, entrepreneurship podcast women, startup resilience, Selectra country manager story, French founder in Asia, business abroad success tips, intercultural leadership strategies, women building businesses globally, managing across languages, female entrepreneur abroad inspiration, Founders in Jeans podcast, Japan expat life story.
Podcast Transcript
Emily Jean (00:00)
welcome to or welcome back to Founders in Jeans. I'm your host, Emily Jean. And before we get into the episode, I just want to say a huge thank you so much for listening to my podcast. It means the world to me. It is a really special project to me. It's very close to my heart.
I just wanted to come on here and say thank you so much. I also wanted to say that if you enjoy the show, feel free to leave a review on Spotify or Apple, wherever you're listening to this, and also to follow us. You can follow us on Spotify, of course. You can follow us on Instagram at FoundersinJeans You can also find me on Instagram at Emily.Jeans.
or you can look me up on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to connect with people on there and I have a lot of good conversations from listeners. Also, you can always leave a bad review for us. I'm totally fine with that. And in fact, I think that's exciting. I would love to know what we can do to improve. So you can also leave comments below and let me know what you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy. I actually do read every single one.
We also have a newsletter that comes out once a week so you can get all the updates from us. also put in
some weekly business and marketing updates as well as some personal notes from me. You can subscribe to that on my LinkedIn, also through the Instagram and in the show notes below. Anyways, that is all from me. I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. I hope it's a good one and I'll chat to you soon. Bye.
Emily Jean (01:39)
Welcome to Founders in Jeans Thank you so much for joining me today. I would love to hear your bio and kind of hear about you and what you're doing in your own words.
Fanny (01:44)
Thanks for everything.
Perfect. Thank you very much for having me, Emily. So hi, everyone. I'm Fanny Berteaud I've been born and raised in France in the Southwest in a pretty small town, but now I've been living in Japan for almost nine years soon. I'm on my ninth year. And I've been running and launching Selectra, a French company in digital marketing for basically home contracts in both Japan and Australia from Tokyo. It's been a very exciting journey and I'm always happy to share it and it can help or inspire people who also think about.
launching their business or moving to Japan. That's a great pleasure for me. So thanks for having me.
Emily Jean (02:26)
Of course, yes. I'm so excited because we have a primarily American and Australian listeners on the podcast and I find that American and Australians do not move around as much for their career. which is always interesting to me,
Fanny (02:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Emily Jean (02:45)
Yeah, so my question, guess, for you to start off with is given that you've lived and worked across, know, France, Ireland, Japan, Australia, how do you explain your career journey to new people when you meet them at a party, for example?
Fanny (03:00)
Right. Usually now because it's been so long that I'm in Tokyo and Japan, it feels like home. So at very first, I usually introduce myself saying I'm French, but I've been based in Japan for the past eight, nine years. Then it really depends on the people I meet as well, because I've grown up in France in a very local environment, which people would never really travel abroad or were not really interested.
When I go back to France, sometimes people look at me bit weird when I say I look in France, in Japan, in my hometown. But then going to university, I've met people who have lived abroad their whole lives because their parents were expats or because they got to travel from a really young age. So in this kind of situation, maybe I give a bit more details about how I got to live first in Dublin and Spain and it inspired me to move further away. So it really depends on who I'm talking to, but usually I just introduce myself as...
a French girl living in Japan.
Emily Jean (03:51)
It's such a good, like that's such a good opener. I mean, that's the coolest. It's got to be one of the coolest sentences. It's like, I'm a French girl living in Japan. Okay. Well, I'm curious then what led you to Japan in the first place? Was it for your job or?
Fanny (03:55)
Mm-hmm
Yeah.
No, initially I got the opportunity to move for... to finish my university actually. I was studying in a Euro-Asian campus and we all had to travel to Asia for the third year of the program. And in my case, I was offered to take part in a program that was a double degree program with which we could spend two years in Japan and graduate from both universities. So being a very rational person, I just started thinking it might be worth doing one more year, but having an extra diploma and...
get to spend a bit more time as well in a foreign country. And when it comes to the decision of why Japan, so I guess there were several, but it's not like I had huge knowledge or huge interest, particularly in Japan. It was more this opportunity to study longer and stay longer in the country. And also the fact that the language wise, like my friends were doing Chinese or Hindi. And to me, those countries sounds fascinating, but they're just so...
What
Emily Jean (05:01)
Yeah. Well, good. think curiosity is like the number one motivator for most good decisions in our life. So I honestly am not sure. So I have on my list, my outline here, it says you study that both sciences, PO and KEO.
Fanny (05:17)
Yes, yeah,
so those are the two universities. So Sciences Po is the French one that offered me the double degree program with Keio, a Japanese university. So yeah, this is where I did, it was dual math bachelor, so this is where I studied for both my French bachelor and my Japanese bachelor in economics as well.
Emily Jean (05:37)
Got it, okay. And is there something surprising or interesting about the differences in navigating your education between those two places?
Fanny (05:46)
Definitely, I think that was kind of the first cultural shock to me in the sense that the way they teach and the way university is built is reflecting one of the big cultural difference where in France we are taught to be self-critic, to try to give our own opinion and to develop our own ideas. So exams would typically be based on some stuff we've learned but asking you to...
actually give you own opinion and criticize the text or criticize whatever topic there is to talk about. Whereas in Japan, culturally, people try to blend in and to not stand out too much, which is radically opposed to Japan. So exams usually relied way more on things you had to learn by heart or most classes, to be honest, in Japan, you can just pass them by attending. Like attendance was over 50 % of the grade. And I was super shocked to see like...
students were just coming and literally napping. It was one of the most prestigious schools in Japan, so I expected to see, you know, just like friends, like people super invested, super motivated. And I quickly understood that the way you success in university in Japan is quite different. And you're not particularly encouraged to share your own views or your own opinion on a topic, rather to learn really well what you've been taught and just to write it back on the exam day.
Emily Jean (07:05)
Interesting. So I'm curious then, because obviously you've transitioned from university in Japan, how did you end up working at Selectra? Or, and I guess maybe they went by a different name originally or?
Fanny (07:20)
⁓
The name was already Selectra and I had heard of them because the founders, the two French founders are actually from the same school and funnily enough they met in Japanese classes there because they were also, I think both of them also did a year in Japan. So I knew the company's name, I had seen it before but to be honest when I moved to Japan for university I had never imagined that I would stay there to work and...
It was really just out of curiosity. So I wanted to experience a totally different culture and way of doing life, but I've never thought that it would impact me so much. I think I underestimated as well the fact of moving at 19 years old when you're not totally an adult yet. So I guess I underestimated the fact that living in such a different country at such a young age would have a big impact on the person that I became and on my own culture or my own way of life.
After finishing uni, I kind of realized that I really liked living in Tokyo and that I wanted to stay a bit more, which again, like I had never anticipated because with basketball and everything, I've moved every two years in my life. I definitely thought that after two years, I was going to move back to France or try something else. But yeah, I realized living in Tokyo is amazing. This culture is so interesting and I have so much more to learn in terms of language and culture that I wanted to stay.
But professionally speaking, it was a bit challenging to find an opportunity that matched with me and my expectations, I guess. I had a few offers, I did a few internships and worked for two or three different companies, but I quickly realized that unfortunately, starting as a freshman, like as a young graduate in Japan would be hard because you don't really get to have responsibility or to have a stimulating job, rather Japanese graduate.
try to go to the biggest company possible and enter at a very junior level and stay there their whole life to eventually be promoted to some manager roles in their 40s or 50s. But that's definitely not the career path that I wanted for myself. as I was traveling in Asia with friends, kind of like a bye-bye trip, I got reached out by a girl, French girl named Florence, who still works at Selectra with me. And she just reached out on LinkedIn talking about that job.
And honestly, it sounded too good to be true because the job description was super exciting. was basically like starting the operations and the offices for Japan from Tokyo for a French company. So was really the best of both worlds, like living in France, living in Japan, sorry, but working within an international company with more of a French or Western mindset and strategy. So I remember getting that message and being with my friend and being like,
off, I'm never gonna get that job, like it's just too good to be true and then I did the first interview with her, got even more motivated and enthusiastic about the role and I remember having then the interview with the founder Xavier that I still work very closely with and being so nervous, maybe that was the most nervous day of my life because I realized I really wanted that job and I really wanted to stay in Japan.
Emily Jean (10:25)
.
Fanny (10:30)
And eventually it was a good fit. They liked me, I liked them, and we started working together.
Emily Jean (10:36)
amazing it's such a cool like wholesome connection too it just sounds like it was like the perfect fit and I think that yeah that's the best when that happens rarely when it does it feels so good
Fanny (10:42)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, really had
that too good to be true feeling and then it's just perfectly matched.
Emily Jean (10:53)
Right. Well, I want to ask you, ⁓ I'm just for my own curiosity. So you are clearly love Japan and love living in Japan. What is it that really was like, this is the place that I want to be in and live in and work in? Like, what is it that draws you so much?
Fanny (10:58)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
that's a great question. think Japan is famous for many things like its soft power, its mangas, its cuisine, its food. Those are all things that I didn't know about and that I not really interested about even though now I get to enjoy them and I'm very grateful about that. I don't think it's the soft power or the culture itself that really attracted me to stay. It's more the fact that I'm a very curious and active person and I think I always need to be challenged. I always need to be
stimulated somehow and staying in France or in a country similar, not similar, but in Europe where the lifestyle in the end is quite similar. I think I would easily get bored in the sense that, yeah, when I come back in France in summer, I mean, it's really nice, but it's also easy and I get like lazy because I'm just used to everything. Whereas in Japan, on one hand, it's super safe and convenient. So nothing too bad can happen to you. You will not get...
you're stuffed rubbed, will most likely not get harassed in the street or least weigh less chances than in Paris or any other big city in Europe. So you have that comfort of living and it's very convenient, it's very clean, people are very polite. But on the other hand, culturally it's so different that even after eight years there, speaking the language and working with Japanese people, still every day there are some little challenges, there are some little things that remind me that I'm not 100 % in the comfort zone. And I think I really enjoy that balance of...
safety and convenience, everything being clean, people being polite. So I enjoyed that comfort combined with the little intellectual challenge of being stimulated, whether it's in my personal life or at work, putting in perspective a lot of things that I've learned all my life in the end. Because I think this is kind of a phase of discovering a culture that is so different. It's wondering, I'm thinking that this is weird. I'm thinking that this is...
not how it should be, but then why am I thinking this way? Is my European way of thinking better than theirs? Why are we thinking differently? I think I really enjoy that balance of comfort and challenge at the same time.
Emily Jean (13:16)
Yeah, that's a great attitude to have, especially given that there are not a lot of people that would be able to do that period.
Fanny (13:24)
I can understand, Definitely
some days I just feel like I want to go home and just be comfortable. But in the long term I know that this is what works out best for me.
Emily Jean (13:34)
Right. Well then going off the back of that, I'm curious, I guess, what has been the most unexpected challenge in running this business in Japan as a foreign
Fanny (13:45)
That's a great question as well. think a lot of people and very often actually people ask me about the fact of being a woman working in Japan because while it has a lot of great aspects, Japan just like any other society and culture has some drawbacks as well and some points they can definitely improve on. And I would say that gender equality, especially in the workplace, is one of them. So I'm often asked about...
how is it to work as a woman in Japan? And I thought myself that this was going to be a challenge. But in the end, very quickly, I realized that before being a woman, I'm actually a foreigner in Japan. And Japanese people don't see me as a Japanese woman. They don't see me as a woman. They see me as a foreigner first. So surprisingly, at least that's my personal experience and maybe some other woman working in Japan would see it differently. But being a foreigner in Japan, I think the biggest challenge has not been
has not been being a woman but being a foreigner. There's been a few occurrences of arriving to meetings for the first time after only exchanging emails and the person in front expecting me to be a man because of course they don't know Western name and they just see it written. So it was not rare that I arrived at the meeting for the first time and they're surprised and like, are you funny? you, oh, okay, okay. But I wouldn't say that was the main challenge. It's more related to...
being a foreigner and again, like having that cultural differences, especially when comes to communications and the way you share, the way you talk, the way you just communicate in general. I think that's definitely has been the biggest challenge for me because I consider that I have a good capacity to communicate and I just really enjoy talking with people, but I quickly realized that a challenge that I was gonna face.
for this role is communication. And I guess that was the most unexpected one because I didn't see it coming until I had to work with Japanese people.
Emily Jean (15:39)
All can you kind of walk me through, guess, you've obviously built up this Electra Tokyo office and the operations from scratch, but can you walk me through what that looks like on a day-to-day basis? Because I'm not exactly sure what that really consists of.
Fanny (15:46)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, of course. So for a bit of background, when I joined Selectra, they already had three Japanese people in Paris office, where basically the headquarters and these people had already started working on the website. basically when I joined Selectra, we already had a website sharing information about mainly at the time, we're focusing on energy. So mainly electricity, gas, propane plants. And they already had like the
I would say like the base of the business, which was this website that we use for SEO mainly and that was really the core of our strategy at that time. And then my missions were first to learn with them, to train with them, to discover the business. And after that, I was sent to Japan to establish several things. The first and maybe the least fun one is everything related to administration.
I don't know for what reason, but initially the company was opened in the south of Japan and we wanted to be established in Tokyo. So I had a lot of paperwork to do to move. Of course, all of that in Japanese with paper forms. Administration is definitely a pain in every country that I've experienced, but Japan and France, think are very high on how annoying it is. So there was a lot of administrative things to deal with, opening bank accounts for the company, settling an address in Tokyo.
those kind of things, which was definitely the least fun, but the things you have to do. Then one of the main mission was recruitment, which is again, not a needy thing in Japan because unemployment rate is really low. As I said before, like student usually after graduating, just directly go to big companies and tend to stay there their whole life. Like there's not that much mobility as we can have in Australia or France.
changing jobs that easily and it can be seen as a red flag. On the contrary, if you receive a resume with a Japanese person that has been moving company a lot, some recruiters would tend to think this person isn't loyal or this person isn't committed to their company. So recruitment was a second mission, not an easy one, but that came after the establishment of the administrative company. After that came...
two more important missions, more related to business development, but basically creating partnerships with Japanese companies because we rely heavily on our partners for revenues because we bring them customers and they pay us for that. So that was definitely one of the main missions when I arrived and maybe one of the most difficult ones because I was the only one in Japan. My three Japanese colleagues were in Paris.
as supportive as they were. The day of the meeting when I had to go to those huge business towers to meet the partners, I was by myself and it was a bit intimidating the first few times. So yes, building partnership was the third aspect after recruitment and administrative. And lastly, I had to open basically the sales team. We operate mainly over the phone because our website was starting to get a lot of visitors and we were getting a lot of inbound calls.
So we need people to actually have a reply to those inbound calls. So yeah, the last step was actually finding our own offices because for a while I was just working in coworking spaces that was by myself. And there was also the timing of COVID. So we didn't get to open the office in the beginning. We were doing everything online because we're kind of stuck at home. But yeah, the last step was finding offices. Which one was one of the first fun things I would say?
to do like going office hunting and hiring people for that safety. So yeah, this is a bit like what the first year I would say or six months in Japan looks like for me.
Emily Jean (19:31)
Wow, a whirlwind. Also, that's all in the first year, which is like a lot.
Fanny (19:36)
Yeah, it was an intense year for sure, but
it was a really great experience.
Emily Jean (19:41)
Yeah. So I'm curious then, because you're now overseeing both the Japanese and the Australian markets, how do you kind of toggle back and forth between these two very different business landscapes?
Fanny (19:54)
Right. Yes. So Australia started way later, maybe about four years after I started working at Selectra, because initially it was handled with the English speaking countries of Europe. So it was handled from Paris or Madrid. Then we realized that the time difference was such that it was a bit difficult for the managers of English speaking countries to handle Australia as well because...
They had very limited hours to communicate with partners and things like that. So at some point I was offered to take over the management and the launch of the Australian business from Tokyo. As first I was super excited about it. I'm always curious again to know more about a different country and business landscape.
But very quickly, because it had been four years that I was used to working with Japanese people that are a certain way. And it took me so much time to understand and adapt to how they function that starting communicating and working with Australian people were so different again from both from France and from Japanese people was a bit overwhelming at first, I must admit. I was really surprised by how casual compared with Japanese like
how casual business meetings were and how the way of talking was really friendly. Whereas in Japan, we use a specific type of very polite communication, very polite way, formal way of writing and speaking meetings as well. Like in Japan, you would never have decisions or you would never have anything active during a meeting. It's more to discuss about the ideas and then it takes quite some time to actually come to a conclusion whereas in Australia, very quickly partners were...
just giving us like numbers for commissions, for example, or deadline to start a project. And I was really taken aback at first. Now I guess like I've understood how both cultures ⁓ operate. And I just try to adapt and to also use like what I've learned in France or Japan with Australia, like showing the example of what we've did in Japan. But also more recently I had another English speaking person joining the office in Tokyo.
And he's supporting me a lot, a bit for Japan, but especially for Australia. So he's kind of liberating me from that struggle of handling both, I would say.
Emily Jean (22:16)
So then I'm curious, I guess, you're not only juggling this kind of cultural, multiple cultural aspects in one go, but also you're managing these teams across different languages. French, English, Japanese, which are also like far apart languages. they're all very similar to each other. how do you build
Fanny (22:31)
Yeah, definitely, yeah.
Yeah, true.
Emily Jean (22:41)
a trust in culture when there's not always a direct translation between words.
Fanny (22:46)
I think French to English, even with language that can seem so similar, sometimes when you add the cultural layer, like even if you say the exact same translation, it's not received the same way or it's not...
perceived how you wanted it to be perceived. But when it comes to Japanese, as you say, are literally some words, some sentences that just don't translate at all to French or to English. At first, when my written Japanese was not that good, I remember translating emails with Google Translate from Japanese to French or Japanese to English, and they made no sense at all to me, like zero sense, because the literal translation is just terrible.
For example, we start almost every email with a sentence that literally translates in English as, become indebted or something like that. It's just a polite sentence that we use in Japanese that you would write every single time, but that just doesn't make any sense in English. But to answer your question of how we try to build trust between the collaborators who come from very different backgrounds
several things. It's definitely been one of my biggest challenges and a thing that pushed me to learn about internet, intercultural communication. But I think, for example, for Japanese people, I know that I need to explain way more in detail every decision. So whether it's in English or in Japanese, I would always give them a lot of context.
a lot of reasoning, a lot of information, they would need to have all of the background information to be able to accept kind of the conclusion, to accept the decision that has been made or the strategy of the company. when I'm communicating with the Japanese team, I know that I always need to anticipate for any kind of question they could have and ideally already have the answer to all of those potential questions in my communications. Unfortunately, they always have questions that I hadn't anticipated, but...
As much as possible, I try to give all the context possible. And when it comes to more like the English speaking side or the French side, the headquarters, I know that what works best is more numbers and proof of results, of proof of why we're doing this, why it's working. So it's a bit different in terms of how, what elements we give them so that they trust us. When it comes to Japan, it's more...
not abstract, but it's more communicative, like more detailing every step of the reasoning. Whereas when it comes to France or the founders or the headquarters, it's just, we did this, look at the result, we gained that much percent, and this works better for, I would say, French speaking, English speaking. And then another key element, at least to me that I found works really well is transparency,
OKRs. I don't know you're familiar with this system to set results, but it's Objective Key Results. And basically, it's a system to set goals that allow the objective of every team or every person to be transparent and measurable. So I think they really enable trust to...
remain because you're aware of who's working on what and what are their objectives and it's very transparent and clear. So yeah, guess a bit of a mix of all of these after a few years of experience are what works best for me at the moment but I also believe that it's a learning in progress always when it comes to intercultural communication.
Emily Jean (26:12)
Right. Well, that's exactly what I going to ask is, like, I guess what has been the biggest evolution from when you started managing to now in how you, your leadership aspects.
Fanny (26:21)
Hmm.
Yeah, I think definitely like the my communication style and my communication, yet the way communicating, but also how personally I involved. think in the beginning, like I was almost emotionally involved with every communication or every interactions and I was really affected when a collaborator or a partner was unhappy or upset or
not understanding things the way I thought I was explaining them. I think another evolution or learning has also been to not take things personally, to try to always take a step back and try to not give interpretation to communication. ⁓ And I think it's both for pairing working environment and management, but also to protect ourselves and individuals, because in the end,
It's just business, it's just our work, it's not who we are. And I think if you involve yourself too much personally in some cases or some communications, you can easily get affected mentally on the personal aspect. So I think another great learning or another great evolution has been to learn the right balance and where to stand to both show leadership in a trust worthiness.
while still maintaining my own peace of mind and happy mindset, I guess.
Emily Jean (27:48)
Right. Absolutely. So it's really, really like, it's all, it's so fascinating to me how you're managing all of these different aspects. Like I'm like, you're a genius because not only have you had to kind of learn on your feet very quickly, but also you're incredibly young for, you know, and managing all these different aspects of language, culture, you know, integration. It just, blows me away. I love
Fanny (28:08)
Yeah.
Yeah,
thank you. I think being young can be a good side on the other hand because sometimes, especially when I work with older Japanese manager or French manager, I'm telling myself like, they're so already built and so already surrounded by something they've built how they wanted it that it would be really difficult for them to adapt on the other hand. I think, as I said, like...
Emily Jean (28:17)
I think.
Fanny (28:41)
Okay, when I came to Japan, first I was 19, then I started working, I was only like in my early 20s, 22, 23. So I was still like adaptable, I guess. And I guess I had room to be influenced or to be like adaptable. Whereas the more I talk to people who've been abroad for a long time, the more I hear that as you get older, your initial culture or your initial personality comes back stronger. So maybe now I have the patience to do things and to accept things that...
In 20 years, I will not be able to anymore.
Emily Jean (29:14)
Interesting. I've never heard that before, but it's a it's an interesting idea. I like that. Okay, well, I definitely want to chat to you about sports, which I know that you are. I know you're into CrossFit, snowboarding, yoga and basketball. Like everything basically. I especially want to talk about basketball because I know that you played basketball in high school for a long time and
Fanny (29:19)
Yeah
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah,
I guess basketball was really my start, like my first introduction to sports. Like my parents always encouraged my brothers and I to do sports. So we got to try like a bit of everything we wanted. Until the day I started basketball and I realized that I really liked it. So I started playing quite seriously, quite... Yeah, I was really enjoying it. So from a young age, I got offered to...
move out of home. I think I was 13 when I first moved to Poitiers, like another city, a bit less than two hours away from home. And I was really excited because it was a chance to move with other girls who love basketball. that was really like a good period of life to explore, to discover, to live far away from home quite young. And I think it really forged me as a person, like it taught me a lot of great values. And it's
just made such that sports would always be a big important part of my life, think. Paradoxically, like when I stopped basketball, I think playing it so seriously, so harsh for so many years after stopping, I didn't really feel and still nowadays, like I do sometimes play with friends casually, but I really associate that with a certain period of my life and it's not like...
I would play, I don't know if I would be able to play casually basketball. I don't know if that makes sense, but it was more like the introduction for sports to me. But then because of that part of my life, like I also need sports just in my everyday life to feel good, to relax, just to be healthy both mentally and physically. So that's kind of when I started more other sports like going to the gym, running or doing yoga. Snowboarding is definitely my...
one favorite activity in the world, especially in Japan. There's so much good snow, so many amazing places, and I just love the feeling of riding in nature with my snowboard, something I've enjoyed so much. And luckily enough, working in non-Japanese, but a French company that offers flexibility, I get to have holidays to travel in.
and go to the mountains in Japan to do snowboarding or on a day-to-day basis. If I feel like going to the gym at 5pm and then going back to work after that, I'm usually free to do that. We have a quite flexible working environment, it's something I'm very thankful for because I do need that daily dose of sports to feel good.
Emily Jean (32:08)
Yeah,
You are obviously managing a lot work wise, but then you're also making space for sports, a lot of sports. How are you juggling all of this?
Fanny (32:19)
No, right. think for me it's not even a question like it's necessary. Like I need to do it and I know that if I don't, I don't sleep as well. I don't feel as good and I never feel guilty for taking that time for myself because I know that I will perform better if I'm in a good place, like if I'm in a good mental space and stuff. So I would never like feel guilty or...
or feel bad for, I don't know, arriving like at 10 a.m. in the office because I went to the gym in the morning or leaving at five because I have some meetings at night and I want to go do a yoga session before. So I think selfishly, like prioritizing myself in some moments like that to have the time for my hobbies, helped me being a better manager or being a work person and perform better because I'm myself in a better...
in a better space. And I think I've also been like in an environment in Japan where people are not really taking that time for themselves, like they're devoting their life to their job and their work. And I've been witnessing that from a really young age because I've lost quite a bit of Japanese friends after they got back to Japan, after university started working. Like they kind of disappeared because their company and their work is their whole world. And I think witnessing that from a young age again, like
I realized that's something I definitely want to avoid because I do love my job. I do love working. I'm a very competitive person. So I love having like those business goals and challenges. But I also know that what's most important in life in the end is being healthy and being happy. And when I see some of these Japanese friends who devote their whole life to their company, don't see them... Well, maybe they are happy this way, but that's not how I see myself.
being fulfilled and happy. that was kind of a gentle reminder from the start that I also need to take care of myself and keep on doing the things I enjoy to keep on enjoying my work, I guess.
Emily Jean (34:17)
It's interesting. think that is a really valuable trait that people don't really chat about as much anymore is you are making the time for the things you enjoy because outside of making it a happier person, also like you usually become a better business person. Like I think when we have something to get passionate about and even things to get creative about outside of work, we can bring those aspects in.
Fanny (34:24)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Emily Jean (34:44)
Yeah, I love that. think that's a really good, really, really good try.
Fanny (34:47)
Yeah,
100 % agree, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Emily Jean (34:50)
I'm curious then is there like which sport or hobby has taught you the most about business so far?
Fanny (34:58)
That's another good one. Maybe... So I hate running, but a friend of mine in Tokyo started running a few years ago, and for some reason she embarked me on a journey to do a half marathon last year. And so I decided to take on the challenge and start running with her. In the beginning, I found it fun, I really enjoyed it, and then I realized that...
It took me a whole six months of preparation to realize I was not really enjoying running. yeah, eventually I did it with her. And I think maybe this is the one more related or more correlated to the mindset of working and business, because when you run long distances, you kind of go through different phases. At first, you enjoy, it's fun, it feels good. And then there are some times where you're really wondering why you're even doing that. And I think my experience of running the half marathon was really like that.
at some point really wondering like, why am I doing that again? Like it just doesn't feel good right now. feels hard. I don't want to keep on doing this. But then eventually you finish, you reach your goal and you're just so happy, so satisfied about yourself. And I think that resilience and that discipline of like committing to a plan or committing to a goal is a bit similar to business in the sense that sometimes we experience, especially in our field where we are dependent from.
external factors, well sometimes you go through tough times and you kind of question like why you're doing this, like is this even gonna work? But eventually like sticking to the plan or like persevering is enabling you to reach the goal and to feel super happy about yourself and satisfied. I guess even though it's my least favorite activity to do, running would be the one that taught me that resilience and yeah motivation.
Even though I guess that those are values that I got to obtain through basketball as well. Because same in the end, from a young age when you're far away from home and you have to practice every day. And even though you love basketball, there are definitely some days that you're not really happy to go to training. Yeah, the discipline and resilience, I'm really glad I got to experience that because it makes going through tough times at work a bit easier, I would say.
Emily Jean (37:13)
I totally agree about running, especially teaching you about commitment and resilience. Um, I, I myself has, I've also attempted to be a runner.
Fanny (37:18)
No.
Emily Jean (37:24)
I don't think it will happen for me. I really want it to happen for me. Like I want to be that person that gets up in the morning and has their running outfit outside. But I have attempted and I know exactly what you're saying. It's really interesting how there are these like things we do ourselves outside of our job that we don't have to do. And it all like is very thematic to me.
Fanny (37:24)
You
Yeah.
Hmm
Yeah,
yeah. I'm not a morning person at all either. So running in the morning was hard. And I think it all correlates to how doing things that we actually enjoy is important as well, because it would be way harder to commit. I think I did commit to the running thing because that was the goal and my friend was with me. But then I realized like it's way easier for me to commit to going to the gym or going to do yoga that I enjoy way more. And I think it's a bit the same in business. Like if you enjoy what you're doing, if you're
believe in the product that you're selling or in the service that you're selling, your chances of being consistent and making it successful are just way higher than if you're it out of, I've got to do it, but I don't really enjoy. So yeah.
Emily Jean (38:28)
Yeah, I completely agree with that, completely agree. Okay, well, I don't wanna go over time too much, so I think we'll just wrap up with a couple of rapid fire questions, if that'll to you. Okay, so first question. I'm very curious about the answer, because I'm a big foodie. So what is the most underrated Japanese dish that you've tried?
Fanny (38:30)
Mm-hmm
Okay.
⁓ for me, 100 % nabe. It's a Japanese hot pot that we do typically in winter. I love it so much. You just pour everything you want inside, meat, mochi, veggies that you enjoy. And it's such a comfort food. And it doesn't look that appetizing when you see it like that. It's not like sushi or ramen that everyone talks about, but it's my absolute favorite, nabe. Yeah.
Emily Jean (39:14)
Okay, that sounds amazing. Gonna have to try as soon as possible. What is one place in Japan you'd recommend to every visitor?
Fanny (39:18)
Yeah.
I have to say Nozawa Onsen. It's my personal favorite favorite. I'm biased because I love the mountains and I snowboarding but it's a ski resort that has its own little village with a dozen of free onsens like the Japanese national, sorry natural thermal baths that are entertained by the local community and it's...
really the best of both worlds because you have amazing ski slopes but you also have the whole town, very Japanese town life with a lot of traditional things to experience. So Nozawa Onsen, definitely on my list, especially for people visiting in winter when it's snowing.
Emily Jean (40:02)
Okay, all right, got it. Interesting. I'm gonna have to have you send me that name because I don't think it would. Okay, great. Last question for you. What is one thing you miss most from France?
Fanny (40:06)
Yes, yes I will.
That's gonna sound so cliche but bread and wine because they're super expensive in Japan and they're not as good But no jokes apart, I would say of course my family because in the end it is quite far away and that's definitely one of the Sacrifices that I make being in Japan is being far away from loved ones even though my philosophy is that then you enjoy way more when you actually spend time with them and when you go back so It's a
Emily Jean (40:21)
Thank
Fanny (40:43)
win-win in a sense, so yeah, family and maybe the summer vibe of having a drink on a terrace because it's not at all Japanese concept but it is very enjoyable as well.
Emily Jean (40:52)
Good. That's a perfect note to wrap up on, think. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm so excited. I got to chat to you. Where can people find you and connect with you? And where can they find Selektron and everything?
Fanny (40:56)
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely. personally, they can find me on LinkedIn with my very French Fanny Berthot TEA username. And we also post regularly some dates about our managers and leaders on our website. So it's selectra.jp for the Japanese one and selectra.com.au for the Australian one.
Emily Jean (41:27)
Okay, great. Okay, perfect. Well, that all sounds good, everyone. Make sure that you check out Fanny, make sure you check out Selectra. And yeah, I'm so excited for you. I can't wait to see what you're gonna be doing next year. I mean, if you're already conquering all these different countries and languages and cultures, I just know it's gonna be amazing. So, all right, well, thank you, Fanny.
Fanny (41:42)
haha
Thank you, Emily. It's been a pleasure chatting.
