Ceo Journal

Hello from Trent,” I say. It’s late January and, talking to a Trent alum who’s working abroad, I figure I can jog a few memories and start a conversation by adding: “It’s going to negative 16 degrees tonight. Do you recall those chilly walks across the wind-whipped Faryon Bridge?” Darren Huston ‘85 chuckles with instant recognition and replies, “It doesn’t get that cold in Tokyo. It’s five degrees celsius here.” From his office in the heart of Tokyo on a Thursday morning, the president and CEO of Microsoft Japan is showing his Canadian roots. Darren Huston, the Trent grad with an honours B.A. in economics, isn’t just comfortable talking about the weather; he’s also about as gracious and self-effacing as an all-round Canadian guy can get. And, oddly enough, he uses similar terms to describe the new culture in which he finds himself immersed. “Japan is a wonderful place and almost Canadian in many respects,” he says over the phone more than 10,000 kilometres and several ti...