Supporting Amyma's graduate application through disability recruitment leadership

¶ … Whomsoever it May Concern

I am writing this letter in wholehearted support of Amyma\'s application to pursue a graduate degree at Nihon College. I was happy and hardly surprised about Amy\'s interest in leadership in education as she has always been very passionate about cultivating full potential of young talents.

I know her since March 2008 when she joined the Human Capital Management division of Aiueo, Japan. As a member of HCM leadership team and her direct supervisor, I had close daily knowledge of Amy\'s abilities and contributions to the team. She was one of the handfuls of truly outstanding subordinates I have had the pleasure of working with. Comment by GL: Suggestion:Replace this sentence with the one below

I have been Amy\'s direct supervisor and noted her distinct personal abilities, and as a team player, through her contributions to the organization that I could experience from close quarters routinely.

Amy\'s best traits are her unique blend of entrepreneurship, high interpersonal skills, and work ethic. She is quick to spot opportunities for change, and I almost enjoyed her challenging me with a gift for intuitive ideas and a passion for implementing them. The enduring gift she made to Aiueo was the innovative disability campus recruitment she launched in 2012. The Japanese law stipulates that all companies in Japan have to recruit and maintain 2.0% of employees with disability. Though our firm was cognizant of, and meant to implement the requirement, it was quite challenging to find candidates that met our criteria, and the firm was censured by Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. In order to overcome this situation, Amy proposed trying disabled student candidates from universities.

Actionable ideas are her forte. Accordingly, she contacted placement offices of universities in Japan, and analyzed the number of disabled students at each of our target schools. She went to those schools to meet with students, and attended seminars where she could interact with many disabled students. A couple of weeks later, she had successfully selected a few resumes that qualified for further interviews. Although she had my support and the head of HR was engaged too, some hiring managers were reluctant of recruiting candidates with disability. They would rather opt for a regular candidate whose performance assurance could be more easily expected. Additionally, since the firm was going through serious downsizing at that time, the disagreement on this disability candidate recruitment issue caught the attention of the global head of the hiring division. Amy convinced them passionately and logically by elaborating on two premises: 1) how such initiative aligns with the business principles of the firm; and 2) _how it would benefit both the individual and the organization in the long-term. Eventually, the hiring managers were convinced by Amy\'s passionate pitch, and our firm made its very first disability recruitment offer to a paraplegic student from one of our target schools. This was a very meaningful step for our company toward diversity and inclusion, which was essential to our mission as a firm. At the same time, it was a life-altering event for the student who had given up on pursuing a career because of his disability. In fact, this student used to be a promising college football player at the prestigious university where many of its alumni had joined our company upon graduation. an unfortunate, debilitating accident during the football game changed his life completely, rendering him immobile, and making him desperate about his future. He started with Aiueo as a sales admin support at the Operation division, and now he plays outstandingly as a Fixed Income sales executive. Every time I see him in the office, he always tells me how grateful he is for the chance that Amy provided.

Her entrepreneurial spirit is evident through other diversity programs she launched, which included International Day, a recruiting event only for international students studying in Japan, and LGBT forum. Through these initiatives, Amy exhibited the importance she had for mutual respect and appreciation for qualities and experiences that are different from our own. She also organized an event to increase the exposure of female students to the financial industries in partnership with others in the industry. All of these programs are still continued, and a number of young talents benefit from Amy\'s wonderful initiatives. Amy has the ability and drive of analyzing the situation and needs of the stakeholders and coming up with new unique ideas that satisfy the aims of larger good. She also demonstrates high interpersonal skills especially when managing the creative process. Amy has the innate ability of fostering a supportive environment in which people want to do their best. Amy is one of those people that seem to light up every situation. I have observed people go out of their way to talk to her and even the most unpleasant people seem to act a bit better in her presence. In addition to her personal affability, her natural proactive disposition towards the job has made her a real star of our organization.

More importantly, I would also like to comment on her strong ethics at work. In her third year with Aiueo when she had to manage 5 subordinates across Asia, I could see her struggle with her own leadership approach. Though she was successfully managed routine tasks and projects that her team was handling satisfactorily, we expected her to go beyond her comfort zone and show even stronger leadership to compete with her peers in the other regions. Amy, however, became rather reserved especially when talking to her seniors. Believing in her capability and potential to become a role model for her female subordinates, I encouraged her to voice out her opinions or queries without inhibitions, and keep faith in her ideas when in discussion with the senior leadership team. One of her good points is to accept feedback sincerely, which also proves her work ethics. Since then, she put the feedback into practice and interacted more confidently and proactively. Amy does her best to respect everyone\'s opinions, and values people\'s individual worth as well as their professional contributions. Her strong sense of responsibility and teamwork helped her team meet their goals and deliver quality work in spite of the firm\'s severe disruption during the financial crisis. It is also obvious that her high standard of ethics encourages her to act for equal opportunities, and then initiate those unique diversity-focused programs at Aiueo.