 I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Today my guest is Stephen Howard. He is the Senior Legal Counsel and Global Privacy Officer for Sony Mobile Communications, Inc., based in Tokyo, Japan. Now that's a long name. But Stephen is a proud graduate of the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii and presently is the at-large council member for Hawaii and the Pacific Islands for the Inter-Pacific Bar Association. So how did a young law graduate from Hawaii become Sony's in-house counsel for many areas? What is Sony's global legal perspective? What is the Inter-Pacific Bar Association? And what roles does Stephen play in these international networks? Well, we've got a chance to ask Stephen now. So Stephen, first, please welcome. Good to see you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. You're here from Tokyo for a few days. I understand you have a reunion of your law class. What year is that? Twenty years. Twenty years. And you've done a lot in twenty years. It's hard to believe. It's been twenty years, and yes, a lot has happened in that time. Okay, so for the young law graduates, okay, how did you get to Hawaii? How did you get involved in Asia-Pacific matters? What was your interest? And then we'll go into a little bit of your legal involvement in Asia-Pacific. But first, what brought you to Hawaii and got you into law school? Well, I mean, I'm originally from Alabama, and as you might guess, thirty, forty years ago there wasn't too much interest in Asia and Alabama. But I had an exchange student from Japan come to our school, high school, and through him got really interested in Asia, and then in college started to take Japanese. You had a tomodachi. Tomodachi, yes. I had a very good tomodachi. Interesting thing is, he's still in Alabama, married a local, and I moved to Japan. You switched roles. Yes. So our mothers joke that they switched sons. But yeah, so I got interested in Asia through him, and then I went and I taught English as my first job in Japan. So that was after you graduated? After graduating from university. Yes. I went to school in Connecticut, a small school called Connecticut College, a liberal arts, and my major was Asian studies. So you had this interest in Japan from your friend. Right. I mean, it's amazing how these things work out, this contact got you interested in Japan. You ultimately graduated from college and then went to Japan? I went to Japan and I taught English in my hometown, Birmingham, Alabama's sister city in Japan, Hitachi, Japan, where the company started. Okay. Yes. That's interesting too. Right. I mean, all these little strings. Right. I mean, you're working for Sony. Yes. I have been a lifelong user of Sony products. I never knew my first stereo as a kid was a Sony, so yeah, I never thought I would work for it. Okay. All right. So how did you get to Hawaii? Well, in Alabama, I see how you got to Japan through this cross-cultural student exchange, which kind of proves the value of it. Right. I mean, okay. Yes. So how did you get to Hawaii? Well, it was also through friendships I made. After coming back from that first trip to Japan, I studied at the University of California, San Diego, and had some really good friends in the program who were from here. And I got to know Hawaii through them. And then when I was researching law schools, I looked at West Coast and once it had focused on Asian law programs. And it was just by luck, I happened to stop in Hawaii on the way back from another stint in Japan when they had a new admittee's reception. So I got to meet the faculty. I got to meet the students at the law school. And it was just, it was amazing. Everyone was so nice, you know, the spirit of aloha. And I thought, if I'm going to spend three years going through law school, I should do it somewhere where not only the weather is nice, but the people are nice too, and very, you know, top-class professors too. Okay. And so then you applied, got into the law school. And so you've always, I mean, it sounds like then from high school, you had this kind of Asian bent, or at least towards Japan. Is that right? Yes. And kind of an interest. And that drew you through other contacts to Hawaii. And based on the aloha spirit you found at the law school, this might not be a bad place to go to law school. So you've always kind of had this desire in the background. I mean, can you, what else can I mean, it's based on friendship. It pretty much has been, yeah, meeting people and getting to know them and learning about where they're from and their background and then finding out something new and interesting and say, let's explore that. You know, and that's very, also very, very Asian, relationship-driven. Right. And my experience has been that relationships make a big difference in everything you do in Asia. Right. That's true. And that's sort of what you've found out, haven't you, in your development as from a high schooler into law school? What made you want to go to law, into law? Well, the simple answer is Tony LaRusa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinal baseball team. I found out that he was a lawyer by training. And I realized, I was looking, should I do a PhD program in international relations? Should I do law? Should I do accounting? I thought, law, you can do so much with that training. You don't have to be just, you don't have to be a lawyer. It can help you in so many other areas. So I thought, well, if I go into international relations and get a PhD, pretty much stuck in government or academics. But with a legal degree, you know, it can help you in so many different areas. It opens up the field. Yes. Okay. So I saw when I learned Tony LaRusa, I don't even really know the St. Louis Cardinals that well, but I saw that, wow, and he talked about how he used his legal skills in managing a baseball team. And I thought, that's just amazing. So even if I find out I don't like practicing law, I can use these skills in other areas. The law degree opens lots of doors. Right. Okay. All right. So what did you do with your law degree? How did you get involved in, I know that you went to Japan and spent some time there, but what was your, you know, how did you get there after you graduated? Yes. So right after I graduated, I went and I clerked for Walter Kiyomitsu at the Intermediate Court of Appeals here in Hawaii and halfway through the clerkship, he resigned to become UH general counsel. So it was myself, him and his secretary who started the office and his other clerk came, you know, on board too a little bit later. And it was just such an incredible experience. And we were based at the law school. One day Professor Levin from the law school, the Japan law professor, sticks his head in the door and says, hey Steve, are you interested in working in Japan? I know this lawyer who has his law firm in Tokyo who's looking for an American lawyer to join, a young American lawyer to join him. And so bingo. Bingo. Yeah. You said yes. And it, you know, it happened so quickly and about three months after first learning about it, I was in Tokyo working at a law firm doing international business law. What was the law firm? What did you do there? So the law firm was Matsuo Kosugi. Tasuku Matsuo is, he has a strong ties to Hawaii. He has done some classes at UH law school. And so he had a strong connection to Hawaii. And he wanted somebody from Hawaii to come and be with us. So there is an advantage to being a law student in Hawaii. Yes. Yes. And there have been others before and after me, Hawaii law grads who have been at the firm. And it was, it was an incredible experience because I, I'm there. Well, there are two other foreigners there, an Australian and an American from California senior to me. And we were doing mainly business transactional practice, but also assisting foreign clients in their work in Japan, both transactional and litigation, and assisting Japanese clients with their work overseas. And while I had absolutely no desire to actually do litigation, that was actually one of the best experiences I had is assisting clients on both sides to learn, because the American system and Japanese litigation systems are so different. So teaching the clients about. It gives you a broad understanding of both and also introduction to Asia. Right. After you've had the American background, really. And then you learn all, all of the Asian background. And Japan does a lot with the rest of Asia too. Yes. So I would, I would think that you would find a lot of contacts there. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yes. So with that, how long were you there? Well, I originally went over, it was going to be two years, and I was going to return to Hawaii and practice here. I went over in 1999, and I haven't been back since. I was at the law firm for eight years. And then what happened? And then I went, I went in-house with an IBM spinoff. You know, IBM is a continuously changing company. And at that time they spun off their digital printing business. Okay. And I interviewed for the Japan role. A recruiter came to me and said, you know, interested in this, because I was looking for something because working in-house in a Japanese firm at that time for a foreign lawyer, there really wasn't too much room to move up. You know, I couldn't have become partner or anything else. So I was thinking of, well, I need to find some different experience. And just this opportunity came up. I interviewed for the Japan position, but I told them, you don't want me. You need a Japanese lawyer because there's focus only on Japan. And then the Japan had recommended me for the APAC position. And where was that? It was, well, IBM has their Asia headquarters in Shanghai. So originally I was supposed to move to Shanghai. But because IBM, you know, a lot of people work from home or remotely. So they agreed because of my kids' schooling to allow me to stay in Tokyo until the kids were ready at a good point in their schooling to move. And thankfully, about six months after joining, they moved the headquarters to Singapore because that's where our joint venture partner Riko had their headquarters. So I'm glad I never had to move twice, you know, to Shanghai and then to Singapore. And the skyline of Singapore is what's in our background. Yes. And so how long you moved to Singapore with your family? You were married? Right. Yeah. I had a couple of kids. Both of my kids were born in Tokyo. And yeah, we moved in 2009 to Singapore. And I was the general counsel for Asia Pacific for the company with Infoprint Solutions, which was a joint venture with IBM and Riko of Japan. So now you are Sony. What is your title? What are you doing for Sony? So I am a senior legal counsel and just recently been added as a global privacy officer for Sony Mobile Communications. So we are the mobile handset part of Sony. In America, probably, yeah, in America, pretty much you don't know about it because Apple and Samsung have really cornered the market, but we're big in mainly in Japan, greater China and Europe. And so I focus on the mobile business of Sony. I'm one of the members of the headquarter legal team. How many are in the, I mean, how many are in the law department of Sony? What are we talking about? Well, for Sony Mobile, it's a fairly lean team for the size of our business. At headquarter, we have about, for law, trade compliance and compliance and governance, we have about 10 people only. I'm the only licensed lawyer. We have one of the Japanese legal staff on our team is also licensed in New York, but we don't have any Japanese license lawyers. And you have lawyers from all over, other jurisdictions? Well, we used to be Sony Ericsson, so we have a huge presence in Sweden. So we have Swedish lawyers and in Sweden we have a Scottish lawyer and another American lawyer. And then we have in China, two lawyers there. And then my replacement in Singapore from the Japan team, she went down there to take over at APAC. So you've got a mixture of lawyers from all over the world. And after we take a break, I want to ask you what you do, and then I want to ask you a little bit about what's coming up with Sony, and then the Inter-Pacific Bar Association. I want to ask about that. What's happening there? So we're going to take a short break and be right back. Okay. Thank you very much. Aloha and mabuhay. My name is Emmie Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii with Think Tech Hawaii. We come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain, and we hope to empower. Again, maraming, salamat po, mabuhay, and aloha. Hey, aloha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your coworkers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters, aloha. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii Law Across the Sea. I'm Mark Schlau of your host. I am with Stephen Howard, who is the Inter-Pacific In-House Council for Sony, located in Japan. And you've had, I mean, your career started because of friendships and relationships. That's so interesting. And now you're working for Sony. Give us some example of what you do for Sony and maybe a matter that you handled. And then I want to ask a little bit more about Sony. Okay. Yeah. So I guess since we have such a small team and we are the global legal team, and we do operate globally, so I work with colleagues from all over. Private firms maybe. We do, of course, engage with private firms when necessary. I handle five areas, global sales and marketing, global quality and customer service, hardware sourcing, so all the parts that go into a phone, software sourcing, and privacy and data protection. Do you ever sleep? I try, but having a lot of colleagues here and our global marketing teams in London, yeah, my day can be very long. It's 24 hours long. Yeah, it's a constant job. But when I was a general counsel in Singapore and handling the whole Asia-Pacific region, I had everything. I was a team of one handling all of our operations in all of Asia, from India down to Australia, New Zealand up to Korea, except for China and Japan. Any example of type of thing that you worked on that you can share with us? What has basically taken over my life for the last two years has been our work on the European General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, that's the... Explain that a little bit, please, yeah. That Europe is very focused on individual rights and having people own their data. And so they've put in place this new regulation that basically gives people a lot of rights and sets a lot of very strict penalties on companies and users and processors of data. So I've been working in mobile and with a greater Sony group. Sony is so diverse, electronics, movies, pictures, PlayStation, financial industry in Japan, and getting all of these groups and businesses to work together to try to come up with one way of addressing these very important regional and even global laws is quite an endeavor. So that's what I've been working on for two years. Wow, and the protection is much broader than the United States. Yeah, the U.S., there's no federal law for data protection. I know one of the senators from Oregon has just put forth a potential bill for federal law. And big companies like Apple and Amazon, they're pushing for a federal law, so they don't have to follow 50 different laws. California has a new law coming into effect a couple years. Colorado, Ohio just has an act to... But it's all over the place with different states. Yeah, and they're all different. Okay, what is Sony up to? What are we... I mean, give us something to tell us what's happening with Sony. Sony is an incredible company to work for. I've been a lifelong fan and I've known them from the Trinitron TV days, through the playstations. One of the interesting things, they relaunched IBO, their little dog, the robotic dog. And Sony has been getting into AI, artificial intelligence. And they are using that technology in IBO so we can learn. It's Wi-Fi and network linked and it learns as you have it. They're not cheap, but it's really interesting what they're doing there, bringing all different parts of Sony into one product. Well, and that's interesting too, because there's a lot of talk that AI may replace attorneys for some things or may already have, as far as I know. But okay, all right. So that's something in the future for Sony AI. All right, you're also involved in the Inter-Pacific Bar Association. What is it, what do you do and tell us a little bit more about the IPBA? Yeah, so the IPBA is an incredible organization that... I actually, the first time I got involved in it was when they had, I don't know if you hosted a conference here in Honolulu at the Almona Hotel. And they asked law students to help out at registration desk and everything. And I did that and it was an incredible conference. And from then I really thought, this is an interesting organization. And then I moved to the law firm in Tokyo and they had the meeting in 2001 in Tokyo. And I was able to attend. And it's lawyers from international school, is that what it is? I mean, the folks inter-Pacific, so it's not specifically Asia-focused. It's inter-Pacific and it's not only lawyers from the region. It's lawyers who have an interest and have business in Asia and the Pacific Rim. South America, North America, Asia, Europe, a lot of members from Europe who do business in Asia. And it fits for you, with your in-house council position. I mean, for me, it's a great opportunity to learn from the other lawyers who are focused on certain topics, because in-house you're very much, at least from my experience, a generalist. So it's really, it's a great opportunity to learn specifics and new developments in a law, not just in the areas that I cover, but I learn something new that I can use in my practice. So the inter-Pacific bar association is kind of like a global group of lawyers, right? It is. It's globalists, if we may use that term, who look out and find colleagues and maybe, maybe friends. Yes, definitely friends. That's kind of what you've been doing for your whole professional career, even before, is finding friendships that turned into something that you did for a living, huh? Right, and they have, the main meeting they have is the annual conference once a year, and I look forward to that of getting together with old friends every year. And it has been wonderful. I've met contacts, so if I have an issue that I need just quick advice on, there's always somebody from the inter-Pacific bar association I can go to and ask for just a quick question, and they won't say, okay, well, that will cost you for 15 minutes of billing. So it's a wonderful, the camaraderie is amazing. And that's a very also Asian type of a reaction. It's, again, a relationship type reaction where it works into your profession also, right? I mean, that's what I hear you saying, right? Yes, but it's not the type of, oh, we are friends, but we can't have this other person as a friend. It's very open and welcoming of others who are interested in the law. That's what I found is that someone wants to come in. I mean, they have a program for young lawyers and students to try to bring them into there, give them a scholarship to attend the conference to help them in their career development. So it really helps both the long-term members plus the new members and bringing in people from all different countries and try to get the lawyers from the developing countries involved and meet with all the really esteemed members. How are we doing from Hawaii? Do we have a good group from Hawaii? We have a wonderful group. We have a wonderful group from Hawaii. And every year we have our picture in the Hawaii Bar Journal. So those who attend the year? And those who attend. So the more the merrier. And I look forward to it every year to meet all the friends from Hawaii. And so my position now, I am the at-large council member for Hawaii to try to encourage Hawaii lawyers to attend the meeting and become involved in IPBA. When is the next meeting? What do you have planned? So the next meeting is in beautiful Singapore here, where I live for seven years. And it's April 25th to 27th, 2019. We have an incredible lineup of sessions of a huge variety of topics. So there's something for everyone. We have the prime minister coming to give a keynote speech of Singapore to give the keynote speech. And of course, a lot of fun. That's the great thing about the IPBA. It's a fun time. There's both the academic side, if you will, and then you have the social side too. Both of them kind of go hand in hand in Asia. And so that's happening. You have any specific plans for Hawaii lawyers in Singapore in April of next year? We're hoping to have a Hawaii night. So we can gather the attendees from Hawaii and friends of Hawaii and have a nice Hawaiian night. What do we do? What do we do on a Hawaii night? I think I want to go to this. What happens? We just share the spirit of Aloha with all the other attendees who can come in and really learn a little bit more about Singapore too. We're hoping to have it at a venue that will give the Hawaii attendees sort of a little taste, a more taste of Singapore. And just the camaraderie to get to know each other and see old friends meet new ones. Okay. All right. So we are looking forward to that. And that kind of is a culmination of relationships for you that you developed from high school to the present. And you have gone from a colleague, a friend in high school who was from Tokyo. Now you live in Tokyo and spend time, I guess, in various other countries. Steven, what have you learned from all this? What do you take out of all this professional relationships that you've had since high school, really, are the development towards Asia? What have you learned? What have you learned? To me, the most important thing is this world is such an incredible place with such diversity. And that diversity is the strength. Learning about other cultures, learning about the way that you interact with people is, it can be so different depending on where they're from, where you're from. But in the end, you can find commonality and you can really get along and accomplish something people from all over different cultures and ways of life. And it's been so amazing. So although we're all different, we all have something in common. And that's important, I think, especially nowadays. I think so, too. One of the things I found from working in Singapore, Asia is such a diverse place. The way that I would work with my colleagues in India was so different from the way I worked with the colleagues in Australia. Even Singapore, the different diversity there. So the working with the Indian colleagues in Singapore or the Mele colleagues. It's so amazing that you have to learn how to react and interact with so many different cultures. It's been amazing. It's so fine. Well, Stephen, thank you very much. I enjoyed learning your background and how you got involved in this. And look forward to seeing you in Singapore. Yes, I look forward to seeing you and many others. Aloha. Aloha.