“Finding Paths. Making Impact.”
ORIX Group celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2024, and over the 60 years since its founding has grown into a unique corporate group with an annual net income of nearly 300 billion yen*1 and around 30,000 people worldwide. This growth has largely been thanks to the ingenuity of its people proactively finding opportunities and synergies that address market needs in an original and unique way.
Scale like this brings diversity in people, cultures and businesses, and to enable further growth, ORIX now needs to be clearer about its long-term direction and what exact value it should aim to bring to its stakeholders going forward.
“Corporate groups like ORIX Group have an increasingly important role to play in today’s world where the global business environment is more complex, and expectations around sustainability continue to grow,” explains ORIX Group CEO, Makoto Inoue.
“These external and internal realities, to me, point to a path forward where we must define our reason to exist, be clearer about which issues in the world we want to solve through our businesses, and identify what our longer-term vision should be,” Mr. Inoue states.
In other words, ORIX Group needed to discover and unite around a clear and compelling “Purpose”.
In June, 2022, ORIX Group launched a global and groupwide project, the ORIX Group Purpose Discovery Project, involving hundreds of employees and external stakeholders to discover its Purpose.
“We deeply considered the strengths and unique attributes of ORIX Group, the type of future we want to create and the significance of our role in the world going forward,” explains Mr. Inoue. “We reaffirmed that ORIX Group is both a supporter that delivers solutions to customers as a financier, as well as a challenger that finds pathways to new possibilities for growth in business, and for communities, individuals, and the world as a whole,” he said.
After this 18-month project, in November 2023, ORIX Group announced its new Purpose:
Finding Paths. Making Impact.
We combine innovative thinking and diverse expertise to find pathways to impact in a world of change.
*1 As of March, 2023, approx. USD 2 billion (1USD = 150JPY)
Acting with Purpose
“Innovative thinking” and “diverse expertise” represent the unique strengths as a Group that ORIX has developed along its 60-year journey, and “combining” them will become the foundation for continued growth going forward.
ORIX was an innovator right from its beginnings in 1964, importing the American concept of leasing to Japan, where it was then unknown. Over subsequent years, the company diversified into both banking and private equity, not only because it saw good business opportunities in these areas but also to help companies -- particularly small and medium-sized ones (SMEs) -- with all their financing needs. This has led to today’s innovative merchant banking strategy in Japan at ORIX Bank, as well as a focus on generational change at SMEs and carve outs in ORIX’s Japanese PE business.
Internationally, ORIX has intentionally prioritized markets and activities where it can make a difference by focusing on innovation and leveraging its diverse expertise. A good example is Thai ORIX, which has a smart, data-driven approach that is improving customer satisfaction and sales in its vehicle leasing business in Thailand. In Indonesia and Malaysia, both Muslim-majority countries, ORIX Group companies SMS Finance and ORIX Leasing Malaysia Group are building successful Sharia financing businesses, that operate on Islamic principles.
Making an impact
Returning to the words of the Purpose statement: “Finding pathways to impact in a world of change” defines the role that ORIX Group hopes to play globally to help achieve a brighter future.
That future depends critically on the health of the planet, and the rapid expansion of the Environment & Energy segment is one clear way that ORIX Group is helping to combat climate change. ORIX first invested in the wind power generation business in Japan in 1995, and after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, foresaw changes in Japan’s energy business and power supply mix, and decided to make the renewable energy power generation business an area of focus. By 2014, ORIX had become a leading solar power generation operator in Japan.
Recognizing global warming as a significant issue going forward, ORIX used the know-how it had cultivated in Japan to expand into the renewable energy business worldwide. In recent years, ORIX has rapidly globalized its commitment to renewable energy, demonstrated by the outright acquisition of Elawan Energy, a global operator in renewable energy based in Spain, which now acts as ORIX’s main driver in its mission to bring renewable power to the world. In India, ORIX holds a 20% stake in one of India’s largest renewables players, Greenko, and supports its goal to drive India’s economy-wide shift toward a carbon neutral electricity mix. In the US, ORIX USA is financing biogas facilities that are helping power U.S. homes and businesses with clean energy.
In the aviation leasing sector, ORIX Aviation, which has over 200 aircraft on its books, is taking a lead in helping make aviation leasing cleaner. It is chair of Aircraft Leasing Ireland (ALI), the sector’s key trade association, and led the October 2022 launch of a ALI’s Sustainability Charter, through which over 30 lessors have signed up to 10 ESG principles – including the development of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) to replace today’s kerosene.
Improving how and where people live is another way to make a positive impact on lives. ORIX Group company Boston Financial supports desperately needed affordable housing in the US by raising tax-efficient funding for low-income housing. Separately, in Japan, ORIX Hotel Management caters to both business travelers and tourists with a Japan-wide portfolio of urban hotels, destination hotels and traditional ryokans.
And of course, sustainable (or impact) investing is key to supporting the growth of sustainable businesses, and ROBECO, ORIX Group’s €170bn asset manager based in the Netherlands and a leader in this area, directs money at the problems of our time, such as climate change, biodiversity and social equality.
This spirit of pioneering new ways to deliver impact in our world is distilled into a short phrase, “Finding Paths. Making Impact.” which acts as an easy to remember call-to-action to help bring our Purpose to life across the Group globally.
Culture is foundational
Along with its Purpose, ORIX has also defined its Culture as a Group – a common set of traits that lay out the mindset of ORIX Group people across the world.
Our Culture:
Find power in diversity.
Find adventure in challenge.
Find opportunity in change.
This unique culture is what makes the company different. ORIX people share ideas and collaborate, explore different perspectives, transcending traditional boundaries. They strive for originality and identify opportunities and risks while seeking adventure in new challenges. And they recognize trends from a big-picture perspective, act promptly on signs of change, and find opportunities to evolve.
ORIX Group’s Purpose and Culture will become the foundation of its activities around the world and through them it aims to foster a greater sense of unity among its people globally.
Bringing it to life
The fact that the ORIX Group Purpose and Culture comes to life in line with the company’s 60th anniversary in 2024 is meaningful. ORIX Group has now launched a global Purpose Activation Project which is designed to raise awareness, understanding, and empathy for the ORIX Group Purpose & Culture; and to reaffirm the significance and benefit for all employees and Group companies of being part of the ORIX family during this milestone year.
“Our Purpose must not just be a set of catchy words on a piece of paper but has to be brought to life as a shared mentality that permeates through all levels of our organization – and be put into practice daily,” explains Mr. Inoue.
“Through our Purpose and Culture, we hope to nurture a group of people who can live their individual Purpose while having fulfilled professional lives; people that can help bring about the type of future we want to create together through individual hopes, thoughts and aspirations, and shared dialogue and connection across businesses, positions, and regions,” he says.
ORIX Group will work to bring its shared Purpose and Culture to life through a spirit of proactive participation, open-mindedness, and engagement.
“I hope that we can now, together, find a path forward to make impact in our world,” Mr. Inoue concludes.
