When Procter & Gamble asked Atsushi Kitamura to move from finance analysis into running a manufacturing plant, he didn’t hesitate. “They always give me next challenge to stretch me,” he tells us. Managing one of P&G’s large diaper plants in Japan forced him to apply finance in real-time operations—a proving ground that shaped his comfort with change and appetite for transformation.

That readiness carried him from consumer goods to logistics, restaurants, and electronics before arriving at Astellas Pharma, where the stakes are now measured in science and strategy. When he joined in 2023, Astellas had just completed a $6 billion acquisition that shifted it from a net-cash to a net-debt position. Hired to “put financial disciplines and make the balance sheet stronger,” Kitamura tells us he views the moment as a “transformative timing” for the company. Loss of exclusivity on a prostate-cancer drug representing “more than 40 percent of our revenues” demands reinvention.

His three-part playbook focuses on growing core brands, investing in science creation, and executing what he calls “sustainable margin transformations.” The approach has begun to pay off—“top line 19 percent, profit 40 percent,” he tells us—signaling a finance organization in renewal.

Now he’s turning to technology to sustain that momentum. Describing the shift from RPA to “agentic AI,” Kitamura explains, “I just ask agent AI to do that booking.” He calls it a tipping point that will “change significantly the way how we work.”

Still, he adds, leadership begins with listening. “Don’t pretend I know everything,” he tells us. For Kitamura, finance transformation starts not with machines or metrics—but with humility.

Ep 534: All the President's Men