#239 Dominic Carter: Cracking Japan’s Business Code – From Market Research to Aging Tech – Part One

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Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host.

Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, we are talking with Dominic Carter, CEO of the Carter Group, whose journey from Australia to Japan is anything but predictable.
He didn't just move aboard. He jumped headfirst into a new culture, built a career, burned out, left, and then came right back.
This time, on his own terms. In part one, we dig into his early days.
How a fascination with Japan turned into a full-blown career. Why opening a Tokyo office at 24 almost broke him.
And what made him bet on himself as an entrepreneur. In part two, things get personal.
Dominic, now in his 50s, is facing the same challenge as many of us are. Aging parents.
Omni is not just navigating it, he's building businesses around it. We'll dive into the future of aging tech,

the cultural barriers that slow innovation,

and why the biggest business opportunity in Japan

might just be the one no one's paying enough attention to.

Let's get started. Good afternoon to you, Dominic.
Welcome to Chief Change Officer. Thank you for having me, Vince.
It's a pleasure to be here. Dominic, you were originally from Australia, but now you're in Japan.
You've been there for over 20 years or so. What brought you all the way from Australia to Japan is quite a long flight.
Sure. I think Japan tends to attract a certain type of person.
And I tend to think the type of person it attracts is often people who feel that they don't really fit in very well in their home countries. I would say as a kid growing up in Australia definitely I loved growing up in Australia it's a great place to grow up but I liked my fellow countrymen but in some ways I felt like I didn't have so much in common with them as well.
So I was always looking outside and what would be, what I thought of what my life would be like as an adult. I always assumed that I'd be living overseas.
I was very interested in Japan when I was a teenager. And so that led me to when I was at university, I chose to study Japanese at university.
I wish I'd studied harder. I always laugh because it would be so good if I'd put in the work early on to learn Japanese really well.
But yeah, I was always fascinated with everything that was outside of Australia and my existence at that time. And I guess I had like an idealized picture of what living overseas would be like and what Japan would be like.
And I always thought if aliens came to visit the Earth, I really hoped that they'd do their first stop in Japan because people there have behaved and refined and have such an amazing culture. So I'm like, I think this might be best put forward for humanity if the aliens started there.
But yeah, basically, I'd always seen myself be working and living overseas. And that was

feeling sometimes as a little bit of an outsider in my own culture. And as I say, I think that's

very common to people that come to Japan. I think they, in a way, we find something here that we

can't find at home and we just feel very comfortable being here. And I think people who,

I know people who've lived here for over 40 years and it's just really a home for us. Do you mind if I ask you at what age you moved over from Australia after college or even before? No I had my first job so when I graduated from university I started working in research in Australia.
So I forgot about my Japanese studies. But very soon, I would say within about six months of me starting in that company, they had expressed an interest in opening up an office in Tokyo.
So I put my hand up for that. And so for the next two and a half years, because I was the only one who was

really interested in it, and even though my Japanese was very scant at that time, it was more than anyone else. And so, yeah, so that groomed me to be positioned to go up there and participate in the opening of the business.
So I was working in Australia for three years, and I was 24 when they sent me to Japan to open up the office. And that's what I did.
I did that for four years and it was successful four years, but it was very challenging. Personally, it was a lot of responsibility at a very young age.
So I learned out a bit, to be honest, but I left that job. And then when I was at the airport going home, I gave in my, what they call alien registration cards.
If you're a foreigner, you have an ID card that you need to carry in Japan all the time. So I gave that in at the airport and I said, I'm not going to need this so you can have it.
And so I went back to Australia and then within six months I was back. So it turned out that there were people who were still interested in working together.
And I launched the business within about, yeah, six to 12 months of going back to Australia. So I was back and that was 2003.
So now we're almost 2025. So I've been going all of that time.
So basically, you first went there representing an overseas company.

You did that for a few years, but decided, okay, time for a break, time to move on. You went back home, but then you returned, this time on your own.
Ever since, you stayed, worked, built your business, and established your own credentials. Not to mention, you've built up your Japanese skills along the way.
I'm guessing you speak it very well now. Always be better, but yeah, I'd always wanted to have my own business.
That was something that I'd always, you know, when I was a kid, I looked up to the entrepreneurs. I thought they were the people who were the real sort of pioneers and people who was building the country.
This was back in the 80s. So we had very famous entrepreneurs in Australia.
Alan Bond is a famous one and there there was another one, Christopher Scase. But they both ended up in prison.
Alan Bond ended up in prison and Christopher Scase ended up in Spain, escaping prison. But basically, it was a time when there was a lot of celebration of entrepreneurship.
And they were the heroes. And yeah, there was some of them them crashed and burned but I strongly believe that entrepreneurship is very important to advance culture and society and I think entrepreneurs play a very important role in in advancing society they're obviously I'm not saying that they're necessarily more important than other people or artists and so forth are really important and people who contribute a lot to the culture.
But I think the entrepreneur has a role to play, an important role to play, an economic and philosophical role. And I always thought that and I always wanted to have my own business.
I thought this would be great. I don't really want a boss.
And even when I was working in Australia, I don't think they really knew what to to do with me so i had a lot of autonomy even when i was quite young so yeah i think it's just a very it was just a very natural thing for me to do and uh obviously very challenging and we had it was tough for a few years there and sometimes it's still tough but i yeah i'm just really happy doing what i'm really happy with that choice of going out on my own really early.

Being your own boss comes with freedom, but it also means owning every decision, every action. Entrepreneurship, when successful, can bring big reward, financially and otherwise.
But behind the big paycheck, there's also a lot of stress, pressure, and challenges that outsiders don't usually see. They just see the highlight reel, maybe even your face on a magazine cover.
Seven, eight, nine-figure success. Great.
Or maybe you are a low-profile entrepreneur, just quietly building. Either way, it takes a certain type of person.
Just like not everyone moves to Japan and stays long term, not everyone is cut out for entrepreneurship. Now, I know you've had your hands full over the past 20 years, running businesses, building, evolving.
Can you walk us through your entrepreneurial journey? Not just the ups and the downs, but also the types of things you've built along the way. I'd love to hear more about how all unfolded.
Yes, I started off the company that I had originally worked for. They're the global leader in brands and advertising research.
So my job when I first came to Japan was testing ads, TV ads, clients like Unilever and Mars and so forth. And that was a very interesting time because at the time, those clients were spending a lot of money on TV advertising.
And Clydes still do, still do spend a lot of money on TV. But in those days, it wasn't the digital environment we have now.
So there's a lot of focus on television. So there was a lot of the work that we were doing was considered to be very important.
So it was actually quite high profile and high pressure. But I learned a lot from that about how to communicate with how to things like how to adapt communications for global companies so that it works in japan so on and so forth and so that was the type of work that i was doing and when i when i had the opportunity to come back to japan it was a similar type of it was a similar type of work that i was starting off with but we did have the opportunity to work in the entertainment area as well.
So we started working on fairly early on with Universal Studios Japan, which is a big theme park in Osaka. We were working on communications related projects and also we ended up doing most of the marketing related research for Universal Studios, which we did essentially until COVID came along.
And that sort of unfortunately put an end to that business. But we were working very heavily in those areas of market research for some time.
My interests aren't only in research. I have a research business, which is, we have a fairly, it's a fairly wide type of range of projects.
We do everything from sort of entertainment to insurance, cars, luxury, to human-centered design and robotics. We do a really wide range of projects.
I've got about 40 people in that team, but I also have a software business in the ad tech area. And I'm also working on what I think is going to be a very big project around aging tech and aging related technologies, which is a special interest that I have.
I've started off in research. Everything that I've done has got a connection to what happened before.
Like I'm not a big believer in making completely crazy leaps of faith, but there's always going to be connections that you've made and ideas that you've added and relationships that allow you to look at new areas. And I'm always looking at new areas because I get bored easily and I like making new things.
now. I can see you're one of those people who's always moving forward, not making random retina's jumps, but also never letting yourself get too comfortable.
Looking back, what do you think drives you? What's the common thread behind every time you push past your boundaries into the next big thing? Is it motivation, emotion, a certain mindset, or something else entirely? Some people are purely opportunistic. They follow the money, chasing trends that bring the biggest returns.
But in my view, if that is the main driver, it doesn't lead to sustainable success. So what about you? What's the thread that connects everything you've done, A to B to C, and keeps you stretching your limits? I strongly suspect if I were more pissed on money, I'd be a lot richer than I am.
Looking back, I think what I've tended to search to our is connection all the time. So, so I think there is, if you're interested in connection with people and understanding of people, you know, that whole world of consumer insights and market research is a very interesting area to work in because, you know, your projects relate to understanding, understanding people.
I think we also, if you look at a social role for what we do in research, it does relate to giving people a voice as well. And I think when I think about it, everything that I've tried to do is about connecting with people, giving voice to people, ensuring that their needs are reflected in the way that organizations that are more powerful than them relate to them.
So this, of course, it can include stuff like government and whatever, but also companies that are making products. If they listen to their users, then the product's going to be so much more useful.
It's great for the user. It's good for the company.
So even with our projects in Agetech, where we're bringing Agetech into Japan, we're working on bringing interesting and breakthrough product in, still very much we're based on talking to users and using the skills that we have in consumer insights market research to make sure that we're bringing in the right products and that we can help adapt them successfully. We're moving from, we do plenty of straight consumer insights related work.
Now we're moving to more commercial, commercialization of those insights in our business, which I think is amazing, something I've wanted to do for so

long, but it still is based on that real active listening to people and ensuring that we're making active connections with people and that we are reflecting that back in the ways that we interact with people. So that's a bit, that's a very strong thread because you hear people say, we're not really quite sure what to do, or we've worked really hard on this problem that we have in our business.
And we just don't know how to move forward. Or we tried this and we tried that.
I say, look, maybe you need to spend a lot more time with your users. You need to spend a lot more time with your customers or the people that you're trying to work with.
Just ask other, sometimes you don't actually have to come up with all of the solutions on your own. You can partner with people.
And I think if we look at the area of aging in particular, the problems that we have in age, the challenges that we face in aging and let alone trying to market products to people who are aging. Unless we actually take a really collaborative approach with people, it's very hard to see how we're going to be successful.
So that stretch is always connecting and reflecting back what people are thinking and feeling into commercial decisions. Before we dive into your big current project, which I see has huge potential, let's do a quick age check.
I know there's a personal reason that led you to this next big thing. Can you share that story with us? What made this the right path for you? Yes, I think a lot of people, and a lot of people my age too, because I just turned 50.
And so a lot of people around our age are dealing with their aging parents. And I became, honestly speaking speaking I became very frustrated dealing with my parents because I wanted them to be a lot more proactive about the way that they were managing their situation and the fact that their independence was gradually disappearing I could see that happening I think they were in denial but my brothers and sisters and I we were very concerned about it so I happening.
I think they were in denial, but my brothers and sisters and I, we were very concerned about it. So I started, I gave, I got down an Apple watch, for example.
We tried speakers and we tried the pendant that they wear. If they fall over, they can, but it was very hard to get their cooperation.
Right. In Australia, yeah.
I have four brothers and sisters and they're still in Australia and I'm the only one in Japan. I was looking at, I just looked at their experience and I thought, you've got to be better than this.
Like I want it to be better than this when I'm the same age as well because when we think about ageing, yes aging yes we want to help out we want to

help our parents but we're also thinking of ourselves as well and i'm thinking like when i'm when i'm in my mid-70s i think these are the these are the types of solutions that would be great to have around and i i certainly hope that i'll be able to access those and i'll have the capacity to help myself in a way.

But very much looking at my parents' journey

and all of the issues that they've had, I thought, yeah, this is an area of business where we can actually really, of course, there's a huge opportunity in a market like Japan, and Japan's not the only aging market, but it is the oldest market. So I'm 50, but the median agent in japan is 50 so half the population is over 50 30 of the population is over 65 there is a method the size of the market is massive and aging people in japan do tend to have more financial resources than younger people interestingly so it's a big business opportunity in that sense, and there's a lot of interest in it globally.
From the point of view of being able to work on projects that have a genuine positive impact for people, I think it's something that we can also feel very good about as well, because the products that we're working with really do help improve people's quality of life. Technology, no doubt, it plays a huge role and I'll let you talk more about that in a moment.
But as I was listening to your personal story, I couldn't help but relate. I'm also over 50.
My parents are in the mid-70s, early 80s. And of course, many of my friends have parents around the same age.
And yes, generational shifts are something we all see coming. What affects my parents now will eventually affect me and not just now but

in the years ahead. But don't you think part of the challenge isn't just technology? It's not about

having the right tools or even how good they are. A huge part of the problem is mindset and habit.
Our parents' generation often isn't mentally prepared to adopt technology deeply, even when it could make their lives easier, healthier, or better. So when we talk about technology adoption, isn't the biggest barrier sometimes not the tech itself, but the willingness to accept and use it? Yes, it's very hard and we can't really move faster than the user in in in that respect so i think if we project out into the future i think you and i will be very open to technology and every way that can benefit us as we age but our parents there it's a it's in a sense it is a little bit too late for them certain, if we look at, when I say too late, I mean too late for them to fully embrace.
There are some people who do, but they're the minority. At the same time, there's a philosophy, I think, especially in Japan, where people think aging is, and rightly aging is a natural process.
So these deteriorations that we face over time, they're actually natural. We accept them.
So anything that's too extreme of an intervention or it's helping too much is in danger of being rejected because it doesn't really fit in with people's philosophy and their way of thinking. And frankly, people prefer other people to look after them.
And aging people in Japan still have people to look after them because the baby boomers who are the biggest or have been in the past the biggest portion of the of the population in japan they had children and the children there are enough people to look after the baby boomers for people who are our age though gen x you could think of them being there's a generation bulge in there called the baby dunkai the dunkai are the baby boomers and the baby dunkai are the children of the baby boomers but the baby dunk high are another big group in the population but they're really um beneath us there's the people that were for the for our elders i think the opportunity in aging tech is a long-term one and i think it it'll come it really comes from people in their 50s who yes they may be able to gently introduce some solutions to their parents as they become available. So things like sensors and stuff that's fall detection and so forth, as that gets better, yes, that's a no-brainer that we can put that in without parents.
But that tech has to be very unobtrusive. It has to really can't be, you really can't be asking aging adults past a certain point to be really learning new technology and stuff.
It just doesn't really work. But for us, yes, as we age, I think, yes, we have almost a responsibility to be very conversant with technology.
And especially in Japan, as I say, we don't have enough people who are younger than us to look after us. If we don't look after ourselves as we can, then we're really causing a problem to other people.
And Japanese people understand that very well very they're very aware of their impact on other people and they don't want to cause a problem for other people and being responsible as a person being personally responsible is a really key value i think that thinking that way of thinking actually works very well with tech But I think it's going to take a while and it's really a generational curve that we're on in terms of getting to the point where aging technologies are really fully utilized. So we have to have the technology, but as you say, we have to have the mindset.
And I think that our generation has that mindset, but I think we really to, we really need to get in early because our over time, we become more set in our ways. And I think we just want to be aware that we are aging and that we may want to be thinking about this as we get older.
Sure. So far, I haven't asked about your specific role in this tech space.

Are you more of an investor?

Are you actually building the technology?

Or are you more on the marketing and community building side?

What exactly is your role right now?

And looking ahead, do you see yourself shifting, doing more of certain things, less of others?

Because beyond just creating new products, there's also the challenge of shaping mindsets,

helping people become more open and receptive to this future of aging.

How do you see your role in making that happen? I think that the first thing to bear in mind is I think this is a huge task, like that it has many aspects to it and there are many roles within that and many opportunities, but we're coming, we've of course started off as being researchers which

means that we've spent for example we've spent a lot of time in the last five years with people in their homes for example looking at how they how do they prepare their meals as they get older how do they clean how do people go shopping all of so where can technology come to play a role in those daily tasks.

Now, in the last three or four years, we've done about 25 projects just on those sorts of issues on robotics. Because we have clients that are looking, how do we build really good human-centric robotic solutions that people actually want to work with? Because people generally don't just in the area of robots they don't really know how to interact with them that's it for today we've explored dominic's journey from an outsider in Australia to building a career and a life in Japan.
But his story doesn't stop there. Next, we turn to a challenge that hits close to home.
Aging. From navigating his parents' changing needs to pushing the boundaries of aging tech in Japan, Dominic is tackling the future in a way that's both personal, scalable, and urgent.
Join me for part two. Thank you so much for joining us today.
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subscribe to our show, leave us top rated reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social

media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host.