MARTIN KOELLING Nominated by: Yozo Hasegawa Seconded by: Christoph Neidhart

Candidate for 1st Vice President

Martin Koelling

Thank you for your trust in the last elections. After two consecutive years as director at large, I have decided to jump over my shadow and run for an office with portfolio for the first time. I humbly ask you for your support as 1st vice president of the FCCJ.

The reason for my decision is simple: After witnessing and taking part in the efforts in the last three turbulent years - first as chair of the GM Search Committee and then as board member - to deal with the impact of our management and economic crisis, I was thinking how I could best contribute to the club as an officer. In the end I decided to run for 1st vice president, because I believe that in this position I can best utilize my past experiences in the Membership Marketing and Membership committees, as well as my professional work as a technology writer to contribute to the betterment of our club.

My goals are pretty simple, because I believe that in our situation little things can make a difference, and because they are dictated by necessity. In my opinion there are four main tasks for the new board:

First, we have to stabilize the financial situation and the labor relationship to ensure that the club will still be what it was for the past decades: The place where the news is made.

Second, we have to defuse the demographic time bomb. Basically we urgently need to attract more younger members and at the same time discuss the future of the club without taboos. I apologize to put it so bluntly, because more than half of our members are over 60 years old, our population decline will be more serious than that of Japan. And I can assure you that based on my research about science and technology, cloning and humanoid robots won't be available to replenish our membership for at least another 20 years.

Third, we have to prepare the club for the new shadan hojin law.

And fourth, we should try to get the heat out of discussions.

As 1st vice president I would like to contribute to these goals as follows:

1. Form a team of professional committee members to serves as sparring partners and a source of counsel and advice for management and to supervise operations. I don't believe in micro-management; rather I want to encourage management toward a proactive stance.

2. Strengthen the fundament for a rational, transparent, efficient and cost effective operation of our club. The main target should be to draft a midterm plan for capital expenditure (including IT), ensure that the rules and regulations are being followed, and to continue the achievements of the last ITPC committee like IT training for the staff.

3. First keep, and then try to increase the appeal of our facilities (again including IT), while keeping spending down, because a deterioration in the ambience is detrimental to membership recruitment. To do this, I would like to listen to all stakeholders and especially potentially new members as to what they think needs to done to make the club more attractive for them. If time allows, I also would try to leverage my contacts with technology companies to improve our club with leading-edge technologies, maybe in lighting or IT.

4. And when these priorities are well under way - as the icing on the cake - I would like to strengthen the disaster-preparation of the Club to ensure our ability of reporting even if an earthquake hits Tokyo. Emergency management and data- recovery plans are a must, ideally with an emergency power supply to charge notebooks or phones, and agreements with other organizations for back-up work space in case the building goes down.

In club politics I will support policies that contribute to the above-mentioned goals, including governance reform that opens the board to associates.

For those who don't know: I am 44, and since 2000 have been the Japan correspondent of German financial daily Financial Times Deutschland as well as an FCCJ member. In addition I write tech columns for the German edition of MIT Technology Review. I have an M.A. in Sinology from the University of Hamburg and enjoy cooking.