Restoring the Club's Mojo
The Club’s new representative governor, Jesse Green, talks dining, value and Americana.
Jesse Green can’t imagine life without the Club.
It has played a role in nearly every milestone and memorable moment since his family joined in 1980.
The American learned to swim at the outdoor pool of the old Azabudai clubhouse and even met his future wife at the Club while working as a summer camp counselor years later.
“Looking back on my early life, I can’t imagine it any other way,” Green, 44, says. “The Club was such a component in my growing up.”
With parents who served on Club committees and the Board of Governors, Green saw his own participation in Club leadership as a natural one.
“I have the opportunity to participate in a club that has been such a part of my fabric from the very beginning,” he says.
Since 2007, he has sat on numerous committees and has completed three terms as a governor, most recently from 2018 to 2020, when he served as the Club’s first vice president.
Last November, he was selected to lead the Board as the Club’s representative governor after being elected to the 14-person body.
After the pandemic-related challenges of the last two years, Green discusses the road ahead: 
Image of Traders' Bar: Yuuki Ide
Why did you decide to run for the Board of Governors again?
Green: In the last 10 or 12 years, we have gone through some significant challenges. We had the global financial crisis in 2008…and then the most devastating earthquake to hit Japan in generations. Then we had the pandemic and watched all our plans to elevate our food and beverage offerings, rework our financial situation and generate excitement around the Olympics just fizzle out. After I came off the Board in November 2020, I started looking at the Club through very different colored lenses. Two things struck me. First, I started losing vision of what direction our Club was going in. Our reaction to Covid was a very necessary distraction. But because it received such intense focus, we started to lose sight of some of our operational direction. Our food and beverage offering is not where we want it to be. Our recreation operations are in pretty good shape, but a lot of people are dissatisfied with the rigmarole we have to go through to be able to use them. The perceived value of membership has changed. And I thought to myself: “I really want to get back involved and see if we can’t look at some of the things we were trying to do two or three years ago, update those for a new version of our future Club and help to lead that change.”
What makes the Club special?
Green: For me, it’s the employees. I genuinely don’t believe there is a single, greater value proposition for the Club than our employee family. And it’s a major risk factor for us, because if we’re not actively engaging with our employees, we will start to lose our best talent. Then it’s a community with some recreation and food and beverage facilities. And that’s not the Club I grew up in.
In your election policy statement, you talked about your wish for the Club to be “a haven to those seeking an American experience” and of reestablishing “simple, honest value.” Do you feel those are absent right now?
Green: Yes. There are plenty of people who join the Club for that true American experience. I don’t know if our current situation is the best representation of what that experience is all about. I do want to look for ways to restore more of that Americana. There are many ways we can do that, but food and beverage and community-building are two important priorities. The value that the Club provides is going to differ for each of our Members. The Club makes money only in a handful of ways. The two primary drivers are entrance fees and dues. If the Club is not seeing a regular inflow of new Members, entrance fees are off the table. Covid has dramatically impacted our ability to recruit new foreign Members. The dues conversation is a little bit different. The Board, quite rightly, made the decision to increase dues in order to sustain operations at a level our Members have come to expect. But if nothing changes, we’re probably a few years out from having to look at that potential lever again. At the end of the day, the amount of money you’re willing to spend for a particular item is based upon the value you can derive from that item. If we can elevate our food and beverage operations, restore a bit of that Americana, continue to grow our community, emerge from Covid, make the employees feel more of a part of our family and increase the value [of membership], it should be that much easier for prospective Members in the city to want to be here. That’s what I would like to achieve in my time as representative governor. My interest is to get back to this being a family club and our families spending time together, having fun and being part of our amazing community. 
Image of 2019 Independence Day Celebration: Yuuki Ide
What changes would you like to see in Club dining?
Green: I would like to end the year with a couple of things complete. First of all, all of our restaurants serve basically the same kinds of foods. We need to create distinction so that all the restaurants in the Club are markedly different from one another. In the process of doing that, we need to focus on quality and consistency. There’s a training issue that also needs to be desperately addressed, as does the breadth of our menus. In order to keep Members coming back, menus need to be refreshed regularly. Some of the menus have items that have been there for years. The other thing we don’t talk about too often is what we believe to be 21st-century American cuisine. There are some dishes on our menus that we haven’t served in the United States in the last 20 to 30 years. We have some solutions in mind for how we can greatly upgrade our dining experience, and I look forward to sharing more of our plans with the membership in the coming weeks.
What is the plan for CHOP Steakhouse, which is now serving as a lounge?
Green: In the short-term, CHOP will remain a lounge, as a lot of the CHOP staff have been redeployed elsewhere in the Club. More importantly, the reopening of CHOP should sit within a codified food and beverage strategy, which is something that our general manager and the Board are actively working through as we speak. Simply returning to the status quo will not correct the operational and performance challenges that currently exist in Club dining today.
I know you have strong feelings about Traders’ Bar.
Green: The bar food is not bar food. The beer menu needs a rewrite. The concept does not lend itself well to the kind of bar that many aspire Traders’ to be. That is a much harder fix in the short-term. If we can turn Traders’ on its head and bring more of an American gastropub experience to the Club—something that would be unparalleled in Japan—I know that it would immediately elevate our food and beverage offering. Right now, that quality, that character doesn’t exist. In my mind, making a few critical changes spells the difference. It starts with the food.
What is the Club’s financial position right now?
Green: Covid has certainly had an impact. The Board made some good decisions last year. The prepayment of dues was certainly of great help. We’re in a good but not great position, but the Board and general manager are keenly focused on that. The Board’s priorities are immediately short-term, looking at how we can expand cashflow to put us in a better position to achieve long-term sustainable success. We can make some changes this year that will improve our financial status 12 months from now.
How key is transparency for you over the coming year?
Green: Member transparency is an absolute must. Investors, owners, consumers: they are all the same people. If we’re not involving them in the process, then I’m not sure whom we are serving. I’d like to see more Members get involved with a committee, write a Tell TAC, visit the GM’s office or contact me via e-mail. I know that we have Members with great ideas, and we’d love to hear what they are. I want to give people the opportunity to meet with governors and committee chairs in an informal setting and ask questions or propose solutions.
What would success look like this year?
Green: I want to see Members using the Club because they want to be here and because their friends are here, their families are here and they want to bring guests here. I want to see pride in the Club again and ensure that everyone has a keen sense of the value provided by the Club. Employee satisfaction is not where it needs to be. From my perspective, our employees are our family. They make the Club our home away from home, and we need to be doing more for and with them. More than anything, that’s what success would look like to me.
Words: Nick Jones
Top image of Jesse Green: Kayo Yamawaki
