MEET
OUR TEAM
Achieving business success with your international partners requires a thorough understanding of both language and culture. Our team has decades of experience successfully bridging the gaps between the East, the West, and the world all over. It is our pride and our pleasure to help you avoid the obstacles that claim the unprepared.
Hiroshi Kagawa
Hiroshi Kagawa is an internationally recognized trainer, coach, consultant, and author. In addition to his home country, Japan, Mr. Kagawa has worked extensively in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and across the Asia Pacific region, particularly in Korea, China, and Taiwan. Mr. Kagawa has coached more than 4,000 executives, focusing on developing their intercultural communication skills. Mr. Kagawa also founded and serves as the chairman of IBC, a publishing company and consulting firm specializing in global and cross-cultural management and communication. Mr. Kagawa has authored more than twenty books, and his articles on cross-cultural management and related issues have appeared in such publications as The Japan Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Publishers Weekly, and Nikkei. He received a publishing academy award in 2000 in Japan. Mr. Kagawa has also supplied commentary for the NHK radio program, Tokyo FM, and others.
John Gillespie
Dr. Gillespie was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in Japan. He earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Culture. Dr. Gillespie has worked extensively in Europe and East and Southeast Asia—particularly in Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Dr. Gillespie has made presentations on trans-Pacific intercultural business issues to such groups as the Asian Business League (ABL), Japan-America Institute of Management Science (JAIMS), and American Management Association (AMA). Dr. Gillespie writes frequently on intercultural management and related issues, such as U.S.-Japan trade. His pieces have appeared in the Op-Ed pages of The Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. Dr. Gillespie is the author/co-author of Traditional Japanese Culture and Modern Japan, A Bilingual Handbook on Japanese Culture, Introduction to Business English, and Tips for How to Succeed in a Global Business Context. Dr. Gillespie has also taught at several universities and served as the Executive Vice President of Clarke Consulting Group.
Andrew Robbins
Bilingual author and lecturer Andrew Robbins has been a sought-after intercultural communications consultant for more than a decade. Mr. Robbins has written more than 20 books in both Japanese and English about language, communication, and technology. He is a contributing editor of several high school and university language and communications textbooks and has produced language and communications materials for several major publishing companies. He is also a technical consultant and has been working as a programmer and system administrator for more than two decades. Mr. Robbins, who divides his time between Japan and Washington, D.C., lived in Japan for 17 years. He holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
ALEXANDRA JOHNSTON
Alexandra Johnston, PhD, is a professor, sociolinguist, communications coach, and author with deep expertise in analyzing language and communication in everyday life, along with intercultural expertise in the Middle East. Dr. Johnston is an Associate Professor of the Practice in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, DC., where she directs Master’s programs in Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, and Computational Linguistics. As a professor and career coach, she has trained hundreds of social scientists in how to successfully secure and retain jobs in business, government, nonprofit, and tech organizations. Additionally, Dr. Johnston has over 15 years experience delivering global talent development training in intercultural communication, leadership, and change management to Fortune 500, nonprofit, and government clients in the US and overseas. Dr. Johnston holds a PhD from Georgetown University in Linguistics, a Master’s in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, and a BA in East Asian Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. She delivers invited talks nationally and internationally and her research has been supported by a Fulbright Fellowship and the National Science Foundation. In 2022 she received a Linguistic Service Award from the Linguistic Society of America for service to the field.
GARI ORTIGOSA
Gari Ortigosa’s formative years were spent in the Basque Country, Spain, studying and working in the translation and interpretation of Spanish, Basque, English, Japanese, and German. His specialty in languages and communication has brought him to work in the Japanese manufacturing sector, as well as in academic settings such as Goethe University, Germany, and the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan. Bridging his teaching and business backgrounds, he regularly consults with private companies and state institutions in Japan to share his expertise in professional intercultural communication. Mr. Ortigosa has co-authored a Japanese book on Basque culture and is currently president of the Basque House of Tokyo. He has also appeared in several Basque media, such as Euskadi Irratia and the newspaper Berria, to provide commentary on culture and language in Japan and the Basque Country.
JOANNA KOŁAK
Dr. Joanna Kołak is a developmental psychologist conducting interdisciplinary research that bridges the fields of psycholinguistics and educational technology. She holds a PhD in Psychology, awarded by University of Warsaw (Poland), an MA in Psychology, and BA in the Portuguese language, both awarded by Jagiellonian University (Poland). Her PhD research focused on the role of cognitive, linguistic, and environmental factors fostering bilingual language development. Prior to joining University College London, Dr. Kołak worked as a lecturer in Developmental Psychology at University of Salford. In the past, Dr. Kołak held research posts at ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD) at University of Manchester, where she investigated children’s acquisition of morphology cross-linguistically, and at University of Salford, where she explored the educational potential of children’s touchscreen apps for vocabulary acquisition. Dr. Kołak is also a member of MultiLADA lab at University of Warsaw, which enables her ongoing collaboration with colleagues from Poland and Norway. Dr. Kołak joined UCL Institute of Education as a Lecturer in Language Development in 2023.
TALAL ALHARBI
Dr. Talal Alharbi is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Georgetown University, an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Ohio University, and a B.A. in English Language and Translation from Northern Border University in Saudi Arabia. At Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Dr. Alharbi teaches a range of courses on sociolinguistics and language and communication, and leads interdisciplinary research at the intersection of language and culture in the Middle East. Prior to his current role, Dr. Alharbi accumulated more than seven years of experience at higher education institutions such as Ohio University and Georgetown University, where he taught Arabic language and culture to non-native speakers, designed materials, and played a key role in the development of various curricula. In addition to his academic work, Dr. Alharbi leverages his expertise to frequently consult on linguistic and cultural matters with businesses operating in the Middle East.
Kazumi Mishima
Kazumi Mishima was born in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in Helsinki, Finland. After returning to her parents’ native Japan, she earned her bachelor’s degree in commerce from Doshisha University. Ms. Mishima has more than a decade of sales and strategic planning experience in both start-ups and the pharmaceutical industry, where she has earned several awards for achieving the highest sales performance. She has been called on to give talks in both English and Japanese for groups ranging from 5 to 1,500 people. Ms. Mishima has also led and participated in numerous online and face-to-face seminars regarding intercultural communication.
Niemcharoen Neeracha
Niemcharoen Neeracha was born in 1994 in Samut Prakan province, Thailand, and moved to Bangkok in 2010. The profound influence of Japanese media culture on Thailand piqued her interest in Japan when she was young, inspiring her to begin learning Japanese in high school. After graduating from Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Letters, in 2017 with a major in Japanese, Ms. Neeracha headed to Yamagata University Graduate School of Social and Cultural Systems to continue researching the Japanese language. In 2020, she received her Master’s degree and soon after enrolled in Tohoku University Graduate School of Letters as a doctoral student. She is currently there researching the modern Japanese language. Ms. Neeracha has extensive experience teaching Thai and Japanese, as well as working as a translator and interpreter.
LUO HAN
Dr. Han was born in Wuhan, China, in 1990. He majored in the Japanese language at university and then passed Level 1—the highest level—of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test before coming to Japan as an exchange student in 2012. In 2013, Dr. Han entered the Faculty of Letters at Tohoku University as a master’s student to study the Japanese language and culture. After receiving his master’s degree, he entered the doctoral program for language studies. During the program, he worked as a teaching assistant for English courses at Tohoku University and as a lecturer for Chinese language and culture courses at the Miyagi Prefecture Japan-China Friendship Association. After receiving his doctorate, he joined the Faculty of Engineering at Tohoku University, where he was put in charge of English education for all undergraduate and graduate courses. Currently, Dr. Han is involved in language education activities while also working to promote the Chinese language and culture in Japan.
Our Partners
With offices in the U.K. and the Middle East, Isle of Innovation provides unparalleled training solutions and consulting to customers all over the world. In addition, they are a certified partner of the following services:
