Later this month, she will resign as chief executive officer of her thriving JC Foods at the company's annual meeting and take the full-time helm of eBay Inc.'s new Japan unit. Okawara soon will be in charge of the Japan operation. Still, that has not yet translated into a mass market for Internet retailers. Many Japanese fear giving personal information over the Internet to strangers. And even if they were willing, it may not help retailers because few have the means to pay for goods electronically.
Japan is a cash-based society.
Few people regularly use credit cards and individual checking accounts are nonexistent. That will make Okawara's job of growing eBay's Japan business a difficult one, as she will have to overcome some challenges that the company never had to face in the United States. Bringing American lifestyle to Japanese markets, however, is not new to Okawara. Okawara, the granddaughter of Japanese immigrants, was born in Hawai ' i and attended Punahou School until 1959. When Okawara was 15, her father, Yetsuo Higa, moved the family to Japan where he ran the Pepsi-Cola franchise.