Today we held the Sony Group Corporate Strategy Meeting.

The presentation videos and materials, including the opening montage featuring Sony Group employees introducing our diverse businesses, are posted on the IR Site, so please take a look.

My speech centered around the Sony Group's Purpose, or our reason for being, which is to "fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology." Taking a long-term view, I started with a review of the past nine years that followed the launch of our first Mid-Range Plan in 2012, and then outlined our future direction. For me, a key challenge was to be able to convey our corporate strategy in the context of Sony's Purpose.

I believe it is vital that Sony, as a company, is able to inspire each and every one of you to go about your work with passion, and be a fulfilling part of your life. And I believe that having a shared Purpose with which we can all identify, is what ignites the same sense of passion and endeavor among everyone across the Sony Group. Impassioned, diverse, talented individuals with a shared Purpose, working to the very best of their abilities to go about creating value for society - I think that is the Sony we all aspire to be.

Our Purpose also represents the foundations of our corporate culture. There is the expression in business that "culture eats strategy for breakfast." I interpret this to mean that actual execution is more important than strategic planning, and what determines an organization's ability to execute is its corporate culture. In investment, for example, the keys to success are ability to execute, the passion and expertise of the employees supporting that course of action, and a culture of collaboration.

At today's briefing, I touched on how our businesses have operated independently until now, while also establishing a structure to facilitate group collaboration. And I emphasized that this collaboration will only increase going forward. As our diverse businesses come together across the Sony Group to collaborate and embark on new initiatives, we do so with the shared intention to "fill the world with emotion." Let's all continue working together along the same vector to create new value.

The first Group Quarterly Meeting (GQM) for fiscal 2021 will be held online on June 1st and 2nd. From this year, we will be repositioning the GQM as a forum for sharing messages not only from myself and Totoki-san, but also top management from each business segment and Sony Group headquarters, as well as employees from all our business areas. I also intend to communicate my expectations for each business at the upcoming GQM . I hope that as many of you as possible will take the opportunity to participate.

As always, I look forward to receiving your feedback on today's corporate strategy announcement, our Purpose, and any other thoughts and comments.