Living across seven countries changed how she communicates.

Asuka was born in the United States, raised in Germany, educated in the UK, and has since lived and worked in Hong Kong, France, and Japan. She looks Japanese, but didn’t sound like one for a long time.

"When I came back to Japan, I looked completely Japanese but I didn't speak a single word of the language. People called me stupid. But those experiences built something in me. I really learned to listen to how others were trying to express themselves, because I knew how it felt when you couldn't."

Living across seven countries before the internet existed forced something else too. In many places, she was the only Japanese person people knew personally. She became a one-woman cultural bridge.

"I realized people recognized me as an ambassador from Japan. Not a lot of people see a Japanese person in certain places. So I was really careful to talk about Japan, Japanese culture, Japanese history… because people think it was correct information. Especially when we didn't have the internet. That also trained my skill of communication."

Before AI, she spent decades building culture brands in Tokyo.

Before joining Jurin AI, Asuka's career moved through places most people only visit. She started in artist management and PR, then spent years at Bunkamura, Tokyu Group's flagship cultural complex in Shibuya, running public relations and sponsorship. From there came Goldman Sachs Japan, where she coordinated more than 100 high-level corporate events a year.

Then came Mori Art Museum. Asuka joined the founding team of Roppongi Hills and built the museum's brand identity from scratch, eventually positioning it internationally as a serious institution of contemporary art. After that, she led the Main Press Centre for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics that supported AP, AFP, Reuters, and dozens of major international outlets to cover 42 competition venues around the clock, before later becoming  Digital Communications Director following the one-year COVID-19 postponement.

Looking back, she sees one thing connecting all of it.

"Everything I've done has been about how you make people understand something, and believe it."

She joined Jurin AI because she wanted to build something new again.

When Asuka met Rise, she was considering several different directions for the next stage of her career. But what interested her was the chance to build something new again.

"I love building from zero. And I feel the future is more in AI."

There was also something else driving the decision. She felt that Japan, the country she returned to and has built her career around, had slowly become too comfortable.

"The whole world thinks Japan is sort of a sinking country, and that is not something to be happy about for the next generation. When Jurin AI is the one solution that may help Japan come back and be energetic again, I want to build again."

Her children are used to watching their mother make unconventional bets: "They said, when mama chooses something, it should be fine. No worries."

Most of her job is helping people understand what AI agents actually are.

As an executive, Asuka spends much of her time speaking with journalists, editors, executives, and partners across Japan. A large part of the job is still education in a market where half the room is still skeptical that AI can be accurate at all.

"Most companies use AI as a tool. Not many are doing what we're doing with agent-based solutions. When I present it, people are genuinely astonished. Getting them to understand it is one thing. Getting them to believe it, that's the work."

What makes the job more interesting is she’s helping to create a very new category.

"We are like pre-priests, sharing all the ways that AI agents can help people."

It feels less like IT work and more like raising a child.

Ask Asuka what it actually feels like to work with AI agents every day and she doesn’t give a technical answer.

"I feel like I'm bringing up a child, to let customers have that 'oh, interesting!' or 'wow, what a nice child you have' moment. That is what I'm doing quite often. So even though it’s like an IT job, it feels quite organic. Because of the agent. AI agent, not AI tool."

To Asuka, a tool does what you tell it. An agent develops over time, interacts with people, and starts becoming something users build a relationship with… something that she says is very human.

She uses AI every day. She still believes human experience matters.

Asuka uses AI constantly for research, synthesis, drafting, and communication work.

She respects how fast it is. But she also believes communication still depends heavily on human experience and judgment.

"Human experience in communication is something AI cannot replace yet. The way we speak, the way we write, it comes from every person we've ever talked to, every situation we've navigated. AI can suggest sentences. But if you don't have the experience to know when something sounds off, you can't catch it."

She's particularly concerned about younger generations who might reach for AI before they've built that baseline, and who might never develop the instinct to recognize when something is wrong.

She thinks good leadership means not leaving people behind.

Asuka has worked under enough leaders to know what the bad patterns look like. Favoritism. People left behind. A gap between what's said and what's actually practiced.

"Leaders quite often leave people behind, or have only limited favorite people and leave the others out. I don't think Rise is that way. He watches over all of us Jumokus. He is also charismatic. A charismatic genius type."

Nobody here talks behind each other’s backs.

But what surprised her most when she joined was that nobody talks about each other behind their backs.

My most favorite culture here is that people don't talk bad things about others. And also, we work hard but we play hard when we have time. The contrast, I love it. Even at big companies, play hard is led by the company. At Jurin, we play hard together. That is very unique for me.

— Asuka Takayama, Head of Diplomacy

There is also a level of autonomy at Jurin AI that only works because people are accountable and genuinely trust each other. Nobody checks whether you're at your desk.

"I feel we are on a ship, rowing together. If somebody else doesn't row, the balance is going to be unbalanced. We all row together. And when the timing comes, I think we move very fast."

We’re hiring. Find out more at jurin.ai/career.