Meet Sue Plumb Takamoto | Nozomi Project, Founder/Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sue Plumb Takamoto and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sue Plumb, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Our family (my husband and four smaller children) had been living in western Japan as global workers. After the 2011 horrific triple disaster that hit the eastern seaboard of Japan, we knew we wanted to be a part of the relief and recovery that would be necessary. As Christians, we prayed and really felt it was a great investment for our family to move to this region. It was a great decision! One day we were cleaning out a park that was filled with tons of rubbish. I kept finding pieces of broken pottery – they were so beautiful! – so I started separating them out to keep. I wondered- could we use these to do something here? Even though those original pieces were accidentally discarded, the idea remained in my heart.
I became friends with moms at the local elementary school where our children started attending. They were really devastated women, who had lost so much. Our team began to brainstorm how we could help the local people, and I kept thinking of the broken pottery and our desire to find ways to create community. We put the word out to local women, and began gathering several times a week. We got connected with several women in California who make jewelry, and persuaded them to help us get started – they came over for ten days that September to train the women and help us begin the business. From this, the Nozomi Project was born (Nozomi is a Japanese woman’s name and means hope in Japanese). We began making jewelry from broken pottery and selling it online worldwide. We’ve been in business for almost eleven years! We’ve employed over 30 local women, sending items to over 55 countries. Nozomi has been so much more than I would have guessed.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am running a jewelry business, but the reality is that I have no background in business, computers, or jewelry. But I am a connector person, and I think that trait has helped me to find people in different places who can fill in any gaps that we might have. We have often speculated that our “secret sauce”at Nozomi is the team combination of both North American and Japanese staff; we bring different strengths to the table and complement each other well. Quite honestly shared ownership of a vision with people of different cultures is hard work. We have certainly had to go slower because of our cross-cultural differences and language challenges. Yet I’m pretty convinced that its these very differences that have strengthened us an organization and grown me as a leader. I also think that our team’s commitment to making high-quality jewelry is still paying off. We have a lot of loyal customers who have stayed with us over these eleven years because in addition to liking the story, they really like Nozomi products. We have chosen three overarching values that have remained at the top for Nozomi; transformation; collaboration, and blessing. I would guess these are not necessarily common values in the business world! We chose blessing, because we have received many blessings from the collaboration of volunteers and friends around the world who helped us get started and move forward. And being a blessing – we have chosen each year to give over 20% of any annual profit to other organizations and places around the world with greater need. We have our Nozomi Holding Hope necklace in which we donate portions of each sale to stop human trafficking in Japan. I’m proud of this value and how it helps to define our mission.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I think Ishinomaki is NOT a normal place that one might choose to visit if you were coming to Japan, but I’ve found that every visitor who has come leaves changed. We had a couple from Singapore come to help out after the tsunami; they went back to Singapore and opened a Michelin-rated restaurant that they chose to call, “Ishinomaki!” (definitely visit there if you get to Singapore!). The sashimi and fish in our city is wonderful! For sure you need to go to the nearby small town of Onagawa for some maguro (tuna) sashimi! Then I’d recommend that you rent some SUP (stand-up paddle) boards and do your own paddling cruise in and out of some of the magnificent rock formations near the shore in the Matsushima area. If it’s cold or you would rather stay dry, take one of the one-hour boat tours in Matsushima to go around some of the hundreds of islands in the area. Lastly, I’d suggest you come to the Nozomi workshop, where you can watch some amazing local artisans at work, making beauty from brokenness, and pick out your very own favorite one-of-a kind pieces of jewelry.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Nozomi Project is the result of amazing teamwork across the oceans! Lisa Nakkim (Palos Verdes, CA) came up with our initial jewelry designs; Sandra McCormack (San Diego, CA) did our initial web design; many teams came to help us from across the world (Hawaii and Los Angeles sent the most teams!); our Be One team (Ishinomaki, Japan) has formed the foundational platform from which we have operated; Liferay Inc. (Diamond Bar, CA) has sent teams and human resources; Asian Access (Cerritos, CA) has provided our facility and ongoing wisdom and overall direction for the project; Namiko Chen (justonecookbook.com) has been one of our greatest publicists, just because she has believed in the cause. And so many times when we have gotten stuck, we’ve seen God at work in ways we would have never guessed.

Website: www.nozomiproject.com

Instagram: @nozomiproject

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