interview with mr tsunehiro kinashi

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An Interview with Mr Tsunehiro Kinashi, Executive Director, AIESEC Alumni Association - Japan

This interview originally appeared in Gaboli’s quarterly newsletter on Alumni Management in Nov 2010. Gaboli spoke to Mr Kinashi about the challenges and goals for an alumni association and the usage of technology to keep alumni connected across age groups and geographies. For more on Mr Kinashi, AIESEC and Gaboli – please scroll to the end of this document.

1. What is your role as the Director, Alumni for AIESEC Japan? There are several roles I have been implementing more than 20 years:

i. To develop and maintain the database of alumni members (currently 8,320 names)

ii. To keep informing the alumni about events happening around the country through the Newsletter (twice a month) and the AAJ Home Page

iii. To coordinate regular alumni gatherings (monthly in Tokyo and Osaka, quarterly in Nagoya, and occasionally in New York, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, shanghai, etc)

iv. To coordinate networking with overseas alumni associations or members, especially in Asia Pacific region

v. To advise national (MC) and local (LC) AIESEC offices on how to bridge AIESEC members and alumni

vi. Collect and maintain the historical documents of AIESEC in Japan, and also trying to locate ex-trainees who took traineeships in Japan

So, we depend on the current technologies and we cannot maintain all our such activities without it.

2. Tell us more about exciting AIESEC / AIESEC Japan alumni initiatives (recently, important, the ones this year etc)

i. We've just changed the name and the logo of the Association to make them relevant

worldwide (from OBAIESEC to AIESEC Alumni Japan Association) ii. We've restructured the board of the Alumni Association to cover more people

geographically and generationally iii. We've started to prepare for the 50th Anniversary of AIESEC in Japan, which we are going to

celebrate in 2012

3. How do the alumni stay in touch with each other? How are you growing your network with the advent on social tools? ( facebook, alumni portal, LinkedIn)

i. Our alumni stay in touch with each other through many small group gatherings as well as local

city gatherings (usually each LC organizes alumni gatherings twice a year) and the monthly alumni gatherings

ii. We have own alumni site in Japanese, which has almost 1000 members iii. Since most of AIESEC members want to communicate internationally, we encourage them to use

Facebook andLinkedIn. Now, more than 1000 members are using Facebook and 300 are on LinkedIn.

iv. For those members from the 60s, 70s and 80s who do not use such social tools, the alumni office is trying to bridge each member via the database (but the difficulty remains due to the protection of privacy)


4. What are the activities that go on in Japan or the world that you think are best or scalable

(planned, unplanned, regular, chapter wise)?

i. Integrated Alumni Gathering (once in every 5 years, since the 10th Anniversary in 1972), LC Alumni gatherings, the monthly alumni gathering (regularly since 1996), the alumni golf outing (twice a year since 1979)

ii. Visiting neighbour alumni associations (in Taiwan and Korea) iii. Encourage alumni gatherings across the Asia Pacific region (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong,

Philippines, etc.) iv. We are planning to organize the regional alumni gathering in Asia Pacific once every two years

Whatever we want to do for alumni we have rely on the alumni database. So far, 32000 names and data have been collected in Asia Pacific. Our mid-term goal is 50,000 by 2012 when we celebrate 50th Anniversary of AIESEC in Asia Pacific region

5. What is the Alumni Committee Structure for Japan?

i. Total number of alumni member is 8,320 from 24 existing LCs and 9 erstwhile LCs ii. The Board of the Association is consists of 28 alumni and 2 representatives from AIESEC (national

office President and Vice-President)

6. Any / what specific services are provided to alumni in Japan?

i. To make various alumni related information accessible. Not only domestically but also internationally.

ii. To make various AIESEC related information accessible not only events but other relevant developments such as success of alumni and new alumni startups etc

iii. To introduce alumni to each other, including those alumni who are residing overseas and international alumni in Japan

iv. To provide a networking platform across LCs, generations and professions v. To provide a learning opportunity at a forum which is held occasionally (planning to make it

regularly too)


Mr. Tsunehiro Kinashi

As Executive Director of the AIESEC Alumni Association in Japan (AAJ), Mr Kinashi manages a database of more than 7, 500 Japanese and international alumni in Japan and including Japanese alumni in other parts of the world such as Singapore, Korea, Bangkok, Hong Kong, New York, and London. Mr. Kinashi is distinct in his passion for alumni management and zeal for alumni relations. He was part of the organizing committee of the 60th Anniversary of AIESEC as well as 2nd AIESEC alumni Asia-Pacific Congress between March 21-23, 2008 in

Tokyo, Japan. In 2010 he travelled to Hyderabad, India for the Global Alumni Congress on the sidelines of AIESEC’s international congress. Mr. Kinashi is working to connect 50,000 AIESEC alumni across Asia by 2012. To know more please visit Mr Kinashi’s Linkedin and Facebook pages

AIESEC & AIESEC Alumni Japan AIESEC Alumni Japan (AAJ) is the Association of alumni from AIESEC Japan. AIESEC Japan is a member country of the 110 country AIESEC network. AIESEC is the world’s largest student-run organization. Present in over 107 countries and territories and with over 50,000 members, AIESEC offers young people the opportunity to be global citizens, to change the world, and to get experience and skills that matter today.

Gaboli Gaboli (www.gaboli.com), a leading provider of web based technology solutions to educational institutions and professional associations. Gaboli works with four of India’s top 20 business schools, one of India’s top 5 engineering schools & India’s largest education services company.

http://jp.linkedin.com/in/kinashi

http://facebook.com/hiro.kinashi

interview with mr tsunehiro kinashi

Technology