■ Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Morita-san

January 26 of this year marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sony co-founder Akio Morita. I visit Morita-san's grave every year around the anniversary of his death on October 3, and continue to cherish the valuable lessons he taught me in terms of taking a long-term perspective, maintaining a sense of urgency, and remaining humble. Please refer back to my blog from April 2018 for more on my personal experiences with Morita-san and reflections on his legacy.

■ Support for World Economic Forum (WEF) ESG Metrics

Also on January 26, the CEOs of 60 companies and I announced our support for the "Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics," an ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) evaluation index released by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Alongside Diversity, the importance of which I touched on in my blog last June, Sustainability is another of our core Values at Sony, and a key part of our responsibility to stakeholders. It is vital that we continue to enrich our engagement with all our stakeholders, including shareholders, customers and of course employees.

■ Sony Music Publishing Rebranding

On February 10 (EST), Sony/ATV Music Publishing (Sony/ATV), which oversees our global music publishing business, announced the change of its corporate brand name to Sony Music Publishing ("SMP"). For anyone unfamiliar with this business, music publishing refers to the licensing and management of music copyrights (the melodies and lyrics to a song), as well as the representation of songwriters and their catalogues. SMP Chairman & CEO Jon Platt explained the business in great depth at the Group Quarterly Meeting (GQM) last August, which you can view here.

Headquartered in New York, SMP is the world's largest music publishing company, and continued to lead in market share for Billboard's US Top 100 music chart in the last quarter (October to December 2020). The SMP family includes legendary songwriters such as Ed Sheeran, The Beatles, Queen, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Pharrell, Maluma, Luke Bryan and many others. SMP also made the news recently for placing more songs than any other music publisher in commercials during this year's Super Bowl, the championship game of the National Football League (NFL) in the United States.

As you know, the way we enjoy music has changed drastically from CDs to downloads and now streaming, and since 2014 the music industry has seen renewed growth driven by these streaming services. SMP is also engaged in wide-ranging efforts to harness this growth, and last year invested in BeatStars, a company that operates an online marketplace for hip-hop producers and songwriters to license their music to creators. I believe these efforts will further help us discover and help develop talent at an early stage.

As the environment becomes more and more conducive for individuals to share their creativity with the world, I feel that the music industry is once again becoming a place where "people" and "culture" will determine success. Creativity is born out of the feelings and experiences of individual artists and songwriters, so it is vital for us to get as close to the individual as possible. I am greatly encouraged to see Jon and the SMP team's strong ongoing commitment to a "songwriter first" philosophy, and hope to see SMP continue to stay close to artists and remain the "The Best Company for Songwriters."

At the GQM held on February 5, I emphasized that because Sony is a company centered around People, we must engage in new opportunities in the area of Social, in other words where people gather.

And in my blog last December, I discussed the topic of Virtual Production, and stated that I would like us to be a front-runner in this field as well. These are all various ways that Sony can get closer to users and creators. I again received a great deal of insightful feedback in response to my blog last month. As part of "getting closer to people," I hope that you will continue to share with me your daily thoughts, ideas and opinions.