Guest Host Yoko Oshima leads this episode’s interview with host Catherine O’Connell as Lawyer on Air reaches the milestone of 5 years on air and 100 guests. Catherine shares her remarkable journey from a shy New Zealand teenager to an award-winning lawyer, podcast host, and board member at companies like Toyota and Fujitsu.

You will hear about the pivotal moments that shaped her career, and why she believes courage must come before confidence. If you love listening to LOA and want to know more about Catherine, this is the episode for you.

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would leave us a message here!

In this episode you’ll hear:

• How Catherine's childhood curiosity and shyness coexist with the confidence she's built over decades in Japan

• The Japanese lawyers who inspired her career transition and the mentor who saw her potential before she did

• Why she's stayed in Japan for 23 years despite initially planning “max two years”, and the concept of "strategic patience"

• The high-stakes investigation moment when Catherine realised that THIS was why she became a lawyer

• Her favourite restaurant and other fun facts

About Catherine

Catherine O’Connell is a bilingual New Zealand lawyer and the Principal & Founder of Catherine O’Connell Law, the first foreign female–founded law firm in Tokyo. An award-winning practitioner, she has been recognised as Foreign Lawyer of the Year (2022), Boutique Law Firm of the Year (2023), and Entrepreneur of the Year (2020) for her leadership and innovation.

Catherine served as an Independent Audit & Supervisory Board Member of Toyota Motor Corporation (2023–2025) and currently serves as an Outside Audit & Supervisory Board Member of Fujitsu Limited (since 2022). Through these appointments she became the first non-Japanese female in Japanese corporate history to serve in such roles on these two blue-chip corporate boards. Her governance work is defined by cross-cultural fluency, bilingual communication, and a capacity to translate complex legal, compliance, and risk issues into clear board-level insight.

Drawing on more than 20 years’ experience in senior in-house legal counsel roles at Molex, Panasonic, Olympus, Mitsubishi Motors, alongside private practice experience at Hogan Lovells, and Anderson Lloyd, Catherine now advises boards, CEOs, and C-suite executives on governance, cross-border leadership, and boardroom mindset. Her C-suite mentoring programmes help executives understand how boards think and decide, enabling stronger alignment and strategic clarity.

Catherine hosts the award-winning Lawyer on Air podcast and co-hosts Jandals in Japan, celebrating cross-border success stories. She is Vice-Chair Emerita of the Australia & New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Japan, Co-Chair of the Legal Services & IP Committee at the ACCJ, and Past President and Advisory Board Member of Women in Law Japan.

Connect with Yoko

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoko-oshima-36a7396/

Links

Hotel Indigo Tokyo Shibuya

Unpausable play list: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3aCekQmbR0CYMxzdkhzFqN?si=BrfZXnH_Soq8SIazs5M_AQ

Wakanui Restaurant: https://www.wakanui.jp/grill_dining_bar_tokyo/en/index.html

Connect with Catherine

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/oconnellcatherine/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawyeronair

"I thought you didn't want to be a partner" - Maya Ito heard these stunning words at a meeting to discuss her firm’s view that her lack of career progression at Big Four law firm Nishimura & Asahi, was simply because she had children. Plot spoiler: she's now a partner at that same firm, she’s leading cross-border project finance deals, and all the while, she’s running an almost entirely female team. Maya shares a deeply personal story of utter loss that forever changed how she approaches every single day of her life, reveals the Japanese warrior philosophy that defines her service to clients, and also explains why monthly team lunches replaced late-night drinking sessions. If you are looking up at senior partners wondering how they got there, or simply want to know what it really takes to sustain a career in Big Law while living with no regrets, grab your headphones and get ready to get to know Maya Ito in a way you never have before.

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would leave us a message here!

In this episode you’ll hear:

• Parental expectations that shaped her legal career and how she overcame them

• A profound personal loss that became a turning point that guides her actions every day

• The "kagemusha" philosophy of lawyering as a shadow ally

• How Maya runs her all female team and makes time for her own life too

• Her favourite podcasts, books and other fun facts

About Maya

Maya Ito is a partner at Nishimura & Asahi. She has extensive expertise in cross-border project financing for various natural resources, power projects, and other infrastructure projects. Her experience also extends to areas such as compliance, cross-border financial transactions, cross-border corporate transactions, and other general corporate matters.

Maya has extensive experience advising international investors on cross-border renewable energy projects, as well as advising both borrowers and lenders on financing for renewable energy projects in Japan. She previously worked in the cross-border project finance team of a Japanese megabank, handling matters relating to natural resources, power and energy, and infrastructure. Maya has also provided banks, financial institutions, and other corporate clients, most of which operate their businesses globally, with compliance and regulatory advice, as well as advice on a variety of governance matters. She is actively involved in D&I projects aimed at promoting the active participation of women, and has organized numerous D&I seminars and other similar events for corporations. She is also actively involved in Climate Change related projects and has organized Climate Change seminars and events.

In her free time Maya likes to play golf and she usually plays golf with her colleagues, clients and her family. Maya also has two cute toy poodles (Tarao and Ikura). The poodles’ names come from a famous Japanese Anime, “Sazae-san” and they give Maya a sense of “iyashi” (癒し) meaning “soothing and solace”.

Connect with Maya

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maya-ito-278b1863/

Links

Kagemusha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagemusha

Ikikata Book: https://amzn.asia/d/ew7DMGc 　　

Connect with Catherine

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/oconnellcatherine/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawyeronair

Liting Cong is Legal Counsel at ASICS, one of Japan’s most successful sportswear companies. Liting shares her journey through the lens of Japanese aesthetics, particularly the concept of wabi-sabi or embracing imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness. If you're considering an in-house career in Japan, curious about human-centric AI, or looking for wisdom on embracing life's uncertainties, you will enjoy the metaphor Liting shares about building a beautiful garden. More on that inside this episode!

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would leave us a message here!

In this episode you’ll hear:

• How Japanese martial arts and dance became a source of peace and resilience during challenging times

• The evolution of in-house counsel roles beyond gatekeeping and contract review

• Practical strategies for unlearning perfectionism that Liting uses herself at work

• Why ideation is a lawyer's secret weapon in the age of AI

• Liting’s favourite book and other fun facts

About Liting

Liting Cong is a Legal Counsel at ASICS Corporation, where she leads global privacy, AI governance, and digital initiatives in the Legal Department. She graduated from Grinnell College in 2011, and University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2014. She was admitted to the bar in Ontario in 2015, and in New York in 2019. Before relocating to Japan, Liting gained diverse international experience at King & Wood in Shanghai, Shin & Kim in Seoul, and Stikeman & Elliott in Toronto, and started her own practice as a sole practitioner in Toronto.

In addition to her legal credentials, Liting is a data protection professional with multiple certifications from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) for European privacy (CIPP/E), privacy program management (CIPM), and artificial intelligence governance (AIGP).

With over a decade of experience living and working in Canada and Japan, Liting brings not only legal expertise but also fluency in the languages--English, Chinese, and Japanese--and a deep understanding of cross-cultural business environments.

In 2018, as an avid fan of Japanese arts and culture since childhood, Liting relocated to Japan. She joined Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation in Osaka as Legal Counsel, and later SymBio Pharmaceuticals Limited in Tokyo as Legal Manager.

In 2023, Liting joined ASICS Corporation in its global headquarters in Kobe. She now serves as the lead in global privacy and AI governance and managing ASICS’ digital initiatives across the globe.

Liting lives in Osaka with her husband and a cat who enjoys making cameos in Teams calls and supervising all her legal work.

Connect with Liting

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/litingcong/

Links

Gokan: https://patisserie-gokan.co.jp/item/

The Cultural Map by Erin Meyer https://amzn.asia/d/9w9muCI

Connect with Catherine

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/oconnellcatherine/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawyeronair