MI-6 is my third company since graduating. Ever since I first started thinking about my career, I've wanted to support R&D professionals and, through that, help drive technological progress — and I feel like I've gradually shifted my footing within the materials industry to get closer to that goal.

In the job before my last, I worked at an X-ray analytical equipment manufacturer, supporting companies with all kinds of materials analysis, including drug discovery. In my most recent job before MI-6, I researched technology and market trends in the materials field, stepping back to take a broader view of the industry as a whole. The more I got to know the industry that way, the more it struck me just how hard it is to come up with new product or business ideas in the materials industry. I found myself wondering whether I could get involved with the researchers who were grinding through trial and error every day — not just here and there, but consistently and broadly. It was while job-hunting with that feeling in mind that I came across MI-6. What drew me to join was the nature of the work itself: 'customer success' that goes beyond simple support — helping a client's whole organisation build a track record of success with MI, and raise both the volume and quality of their development.

At the moment, I support clients in embedding our proprietary SaaS, miHub®, across their organisations. That process moves through several phases: first onboarding support, then adoption, and then expansion — spreading and establishing use across the organisation. As a Customer Success Manager, part of my role is to plan and test the measures needed at each phase, and to optimise how we operate.

Bringing a new concept like MI into an organisation is never simple. Until fairly recently, I think there was quite a bit of psychological resistance to new approaches in the materials development field too, along with real difficulty breaking away from existing workflows. There were also plenty of cases where the person in charge personally understood that MI would be necessary and unavoidable in future, but kept putting it off because of the work in front of them, or found themselves stuck because they couldn't bring the people around them on board.

That's why, alongside technical support, helping to build awareness across the organisation is also an important part of the customer success team's role. It was completely new territory for me, and I found my way through constant trial and error, but I kept experimenting — running seminars on using MI, and planning and carrying out initiatives to bring client employees on board. As a result, one client saw an internal MI project get off the ground and grow into a company-wide effort. Witnessing an organisation's culture change like that was a deeply moving experience for me.

What makes working at MI-6 interesting, above all, is being able to take part in this turning point as development shifts towards a data-driven approach. It's also appealing to be able to collaborate with colleagues from all kinds of backgrounds, all of us driven by the same sense of purpose: we want to energise Japan's manufacturing and materials industries. I feel like ideas from different perspectives spark off one another. On the customer success team, we also feed the requests we hear from clients back to our in-house product development team, working together to improve our products and services.

There's also the fact that being fully remote and on flexitime lets me structure my work around raising my children, which I'm really grateful for. I feel this, too, reflects a culture that's characteristic of MI-6 — one built on the assumption that employees will act with autonomy and a sense of responsibility.

Recently, I've felt that researchers' attitudes are changing significantly, and that the wind is at our backs when it comes to using MI. Going forward, I want to help even more people experience success with data-driven development, and spread MI even more widely. I believe that will accelerate new discoveries and technological breakthroughs, and become a force that enriches our everyday lives.