Message from the CEO/Navigator Fujiko Suda

What do I want out of my life? What do I do to attain what I want? How do I live today? What gives me joy? These questions were consistently with me from my twenties to today. When I was in my twenties, I aspired to have a “normal” family I didn’t have growing up. and I wanted to have a work career which was imprinted onto me in my high school years in the late 1970’s USA. There were many twists and turns, but with those intentions that stayed true inside of me, by the time I was in mid 40’s, I realized that I attained a “normal” family and a work career. I was making one mistake after another, but I did the best I could each day. One day, I realized that I was living a life that I could call a happy one living a with three boys, husband and mother-in-law, days filled with laughter. I had a work career doing thngs that people valued.

That was 20 years ago. Now, my three sons are doing what they want, each married to someone they love, living where they want. I am still doing the work that I love to do, which is interpreting. The intention I have now is to live fully and create positive impact in people’s lives. A modern day temple. To do this, in addition to my marketing research interpreting work, I decided to offer a place where anyone who wants to live fully can come and think, reflect, connect and learn. Fill heart and mind as well as recharge body with food and drink. I particularly found breakfasts so comforting and coffee energizing, both such big part of my worklife.

I left Project Kobo, K.K., the company I founded 20 years ago and launched this company, Kikai Corporation to pursue this intention. Kikai in Japanese means machine, opportunity or return to the sea. I did not use Kanji characters that would commit to any of these meanings. Kikai Corporation is a machine that produces joy and happiness. It is a place full of opportunities. It finally is a sea that all water eventually flows into. "A river is a cloud that has known the sea" A place where everyone come together and accept each other regardless of differences, because at the core, we are one and the same.