Elliot Conti

As a consultant with Japan Intercultural Consulting, Elliot regularly designs and delivers cross-cultural training for both Japanese and non-Japanese participants. His work includes helping Japanese professionals understand different global cultures and approaches to business, as well as helping non-Japanese professionals understand Japanese business culture, communication, and workplace practices. Drawing on his extensive experience living and working in Japan, he is able to provide practical insights into not only how cultural differences manifest themselves in the workplace, but also how people can adapt their behavior to work together more effectively.

Elliot also has significant experience designing and facilitating cross-cultural and cross-functional team-building and leadership sessions across a broad spectrum of industries. Utilizing a variety of modalities—from team games and activities to thematic group discussions, case studies, and team-based action planning—he creates highly interactive programs tailored to the needs of each group. His facilitation focuses on areas including intercultural communication and collaboration, culture-building, psychological safety, improving team dialogue, and strengthening relationships across teams.

More broadly, Elliot has experience lecturing, training, and conducting workshops on topics as wide-ranging as employing and retaining foreigners in Japanese companies, productivity and the Japanese economy, intercultural communication, strategic design, networking in Japan, Japanese language acquisition, immigration and urban poverty, and more. He has a particular specialty in providing Japanese organizations with an outside perspective as they seek to become more international.

Born and raised in the United States, Elliot has lived in Japan for over ten years. He helped establish the non-profit Global Aichi in Nagoya and served as its first General Manager for just over three years, working to assist Japanese companies in their efforts to hire and retain highly skilled foreign talent. During that time, he also taught a course on international marketing as a part-time lecturer at Nagoya University. He then joined KCJ GROUP, Inc., where he played an integral role in establishing KidZania Fukuoka and developing key partnerships with corporate sponsors, government bodies, and local universities.

In addition to his work as a consultant, Elliot is the co-founder of Global Nexus K.K. and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Prometheus Foundation, the General Manager of Global Village Yurakucho House, and an advisor for Global Aichi. He has been featured in the Japanese media numerous times, most notably as one of the “30 Pioneers of the New Era” by Wedge magazine.

Elliot holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Denison University and a master’s degree in Sociology from Osaka City University (now Osaka Metropolitan University).