Tokyo American Club’s leader ensures value

• Name: Jesse Green
• Title: Representative Governor, Tokyo American Club
• URL: https://www.tokyoamericanclub.org/
• Hometown: Hong Kong
• Years in Japan: 34

Born in Hong Kong and moving to Tokyo with his American parents as a child, current Tokyo American Club (TAC) Representative Governor Jesse Green grew up at TAC. “Literally my whole life has revolved around this club,” said the business executive and entrepreneur. From hanging out with his friends swimming and bowling as a kid to the first meeting with his future wife on the club’s pool deck as a lifeguard, he has always found TAC at the center of his life story. With the club now gearing up for a busy year, he took time to sit down with The Japan Times’ Leaders & Readers section to talk about what TAC offers members, his time in Japan and changes that have taken place since joining the club board.

“Most of my friends tell me, ‘Maybe you can find some other location to spend your time,’” Green joked, but having grown up in the club, he has always been drawn to finding ways to improve the facilities for club members. “One of the things that always troubled me, especially as an avid swimmer and instructor, was that due to the weather the (outdoor) pool was only available to us from about April or early May to September,” he explained on how he first became involved in the club’s management. “The point was, only about half the year was available for swimming, so when I was invited to get involved in the swim committee to look at ways to keep it open year-round for the members, I found that the opportunity to help as well as my love of the club is what really got me involved.”

Since becoming representative governor in November 2021, Green has overseen many of the challenges the club has faced since COVID and is now focused on ensuring that club members get better value for their money. “One of the things we were really focused on was increasing the member satisfaction,” he said.

First in line for Green was to ensure that all the club restaurants had a distinctive menu and were true to their theme. “Our Traders’ Bar is an adult-style bar with a sports-style theme serving sports-style food — it wasn’t doing that, it had the same menu as next door at the American Bar & Grill — and then upstairs we have our formal dining room and event space, which hadn’t opened since COVID, so we wanted to start all over again and ensure that every one of our restaurants had a distinct menu with a distinct concept.” With the new menus taking off, and the reopening of the upstairs formal dining, the club is now back to running a full calendar of events, including a monthly themed event in the Winter Garden lobby.

“Next thing we looked at was our recreational offerings — swimming pool, squash courts, gym — and decided they were all one after the other, and we wanted to find ways to have those facilities more integrated,” he said, “so we sought advice on how to better integrate our recreational facilities and rethought our wellness and health and well-being strategies.” With food and beverage updated and the reordering of the recreational facilities underway, the TAC board has begun to concentrate on managing costs more effectively rather than simply increasing fees, he said. “By doing that, we can make the organization more efficient, and by doing that we can provide greater value for our members.”

As well as greater value for members, the board also found that concentrating on the bottom line had significant positive effects on sustainability and the club’s energy footprint. “The board put together a sustainability task force to work with the house committee, and we tasked them with determining which equipment needed to be replaced, and if so, how those replaced resources can be more sustainably efficient in terms of materials and practices.” Along with instituting changes such as more sustainable kitchen practices and energy use, the club also installed building management software that provides clear data on how the building is operating from an efficiency perspective with regard to air conditioning, heating and the use of blinds and sunshades, among other things, which allows for cost-efficient reductions in energy use.

Green believes the club’s special attraction as an event space is that it lacks the meticulous rules regarding the flow of activities that other venues of similar size often have. “We’re certainly not a club that will limit your experience — this is the American Club, so we’re much more fluid, a much more internationally minded organization.” The modern Azabu Juban facility sits next to the Russian Embassy, with excellent views of the city. It has large and well-maintained garden spaces and a formal banquet room that holds over 300 guests. The club also has a continuous line-up of celebrations across the calendar, with the biggest always reserved for the Fourth of July weekend. “We had one of the largest July 4th turnouts in our club history this year,” he said. “We have music shows, games for the children, food trucks — it’s a day that encompasses the youngest of the young and the oldest of the old, and that to me is what July 4th really feels like in the U.S. — I’ve even insisted on getting dunk tanks!”

With an eye on the future, Green is expecting next year’s Fourth to be the biggest yet. “It’s not just for Americans — we welcome all of our members to bring all the guests they’d like.”