Brad Schmidt

Managing Partner

Brad Schmidt is Managing Partner of Makoto Works. Born and raised in Japan, he is fluent in Japanese and has practiced Lean as an internal manager, consultant, and executive since 1998.

He served as Chief Operating Officer of the Kaizen Institute, a senior executive role inside the institute’s own operating system. Before that he was Lean manager at Continental Automotive in Japan, taking Lean across the company including headquarters and the engineering center, and later vice president at MetLife Japan, where he rebuilt the Lean office and ran cross-department cost work.

He hosts Japan Lean Experience benchmarking tours and is a certified Shingo trainer and certified TWI trainer. The work is still Gemba: stand where the work happens, then grow the people who will run the next standard.

The practice is small on purpose. It supplements, enhances, and extends the team already in place.