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Toku Sakai

Written by Marissa Wilson. Photo by Kaila Rovine.

On a hot summer day, lured by the solace of air conditioning, I

meet up with Senior Analyst Toku Sakai inside a Peet’s coffee

shop to talk about his journey to Avascent. Fresh-faced and

disarmingly inquisitive, Toku shares about how his

cross-cultural experiences have shaped his life and why he

loves working in the private sector.

Toku Sakai

MW (Marissa Wilson): Around the office, you’re known for your Japanese experience and language skills. How do you leverage those in your work?

TS (Toku Sakai): Avascent is at the center of a lot of exciting action in Japan, so I have opportunities to use my foreign language and foreign cultural know-how (from working in Japan) to help firms there.

MW: What is different about working in the U.S. versus in Japan?

TS: Work-life balance! You can work long hours in either place, but in the U.S., it’s easier to wrap up your work and go home at the end of the work day. In Japan, you’re expected to wait to go out with everyone at the office for late night dinner and drinking. If interested, you still have the option to do your share of drinking with your colleagues here, but in the U.S., it’s a choice instead of a cultural obligation.

MW: How did you initially get interested in defense?

TS: When I was in Japan in 2009, North Korea fired a ballistic missile (Taepodong-2) that flew over mainland Japan and, as you can imagine, a lot of people freaked out. It’s something I can’t even imagine happening in the U.S. For the first time, I realized security and defense issues are very real for a lot of people and something I wanted to learn more about.

MW: You spent some time at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), why did you make the switch to the private sector?

TS: My experience at DoD confirmed my interest in the defense field and the importance of a sufficient security apparatus. However, I was a bit frustrated with the nature of defense policy making because it’s difficult to measure policy effectiveness and implementation. At Avascent, I’m still working on defense‑‑‑‑related topics, but now from a business angle. Because our clients are profit driven, it’s much easier to track their progress. Plus, you get way better benefits working in the private sector!

MW: Like a few others around here, you enjoy salsa dancing. How did you learn to salsa?

TS: I once worked as a translator on a cruise ship going from Panama to Japan, and people started going a bit stir crazy holed up in a confined space for weeks. Nearly all of the crew were from Latin America and most knew how to dance salsa, so they started teaching the basic steps to everyone onboard and organized live music salsa parties every night. I wasn’t really that into dancing initially, but when all you hear is salsa music all day, it kind of grows on you.

MW: What else do you do for fun when you’re not in the office?

TS: I recently got my motorcycle license, so I spend a lot of my spare time renting and riding different type of bikes. I have a dream to one day ride across the U.S. (though I’m aware it would probably suck after the first two hours or as soon as it starts to rain).