SI: Thoughts From Sony’s Executive Roundtable

[Christopher]

I recently flew out to beautiful San Diego, California to take part in an Executive Roundtable session hosted by President Stan Glasgow and EVP/CMO Mike Fasulo at the Sony headquarters. It was great to finally visit Sony’s new building and participate in discussion about the current state of the company. The building was very impressive architecturally, with incredible landscaping and various “green” features such as solar panels on the parking deck and a fountain that cascades recycled water collected from the air conditioner system. Upon arrival, I encountered a spacious lobby with quotes from Sony’s co-founder Akio Morita dressed upon the walls. I felt like I was in heaven – this was my dream world, and a place I would love to eventually work at one day.

After being whisked away into a green room slathered with lavish pastries, Starbucks coffee and other confectioneries, I met up with other major players in the press, including representatives from Bloomberg, NBC, LA Times, TWICE, Dealerscope, NPD, and other analyst/media outlets. It was quite surreal to be amongst these individuals – Sony Insider is a small site, and I’m rather young (most of these people had at least ten years of age on me or more). Regardless, I encountered a few familiar faces and felt quite comfortable in the various conversations that were taking place during breakfast.

Before the Roundtable, several of us embarked on a tour of Sony headquarters – there are eleven floors in total and each one has a large picture of Akio Morita near the elevator. It was very inspirational to see Sony making sure that employees had constant reminders of the company’s past – a subject that I find incredibly important to preserve. One of the first areas of the building we visited was the large Sony Caf