When you size up Paul Okura, somehow the dark pinstripe suit and firm handshake do not hint at free time spent as an amateur dancer and avid boater.
“When I was living in Japan, the International Dance Sport Federation sent me to France as the Japanese representative at their annual meeting,” the Eastchester resident said as his friendly laugh filled the living room. “It”™s not because I was the best dancer. I was the only one who spoke English.”
The former banker turned entrepreneur watched years pass as he lived a global existence marked by jet lag and frequent flier miles.
His most recent gig as a senior vice president at The Bank of New York Mellon had Okura overseeing the Asia Pacific division and about a week per month, he lived abroad accordingly.
Prior to the BNY merger with Mellon Bank about two years ago, Okura was busy expanding Mellon”™s business in Asia.
“At the time, Asian markets were very strategically important,” he said. “Mellon Bank was very well-known in the U.S. and in European markets, but they needed to expand their brand awareness in Asia.”
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“The BNY Mellon was focused more on custody and asset management business,” he said of the combined bank. “Just prior to the merger, BNY swapped its retail branches in the New York area with Chase, and Chase in turn, gave its corporate trust business to BNY. We were very fortunate because without those retail branches, we had no exposure to mortgage loans that other major banks unfortunately had.”
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For many years, the Asian market was in a “borrowing mode,” Okura said, but BNY Mellon was positioned well when the growth of trade and domestic markets in Asia prepared the bank to help investors and sovereign funds invest liquid assets.
Afforded an opportunity to take a corporate package, exit and start anew last year, Okura accepted.
Research led him to carefully pinpoint his area of expertise ”“ fostering client relationships.
Rather than starting a health care business, Okura turned to information technology and launched CMIT Solutions of Southern Westchester.
Okura said there are some 110 locations nationwide and each are independently owned.
Joining a broader company “was helpful because I did not need to have all of the infrastructure myself, which is costly when you begin a new business,” he said.
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A network operation center monitors clients”™ PCs remotely and that 80 percent of the time, issues are resolved without sending a technician out on a job.
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The company primarily provides IT equipment maintenance, a help desk, data backup and disaster recovery.
“After 9/11, the banking industry changed dramatically,” Okura said. “It worked so hard to improve disaster recovery after losing documents stored in safes at the World Trade Center. Now that I”™m in IT-managed services, I”™m finding that many businesses are so behind in understanding the notion of disaster recovery.”
Unlike routine automobile and dental maintenance to prevent breakdowns or root canals, Okura said he notices small to medium-size businesses wait out tune-ups until costly repairs are imminent.
CMIT Solutions of Southern Westchester charges per month and in general, contracts are for three years.
Paperless office solutions, such as the eFileCabinet run the gamut of $2,500 or less for five concurrent user licenses or $2,000 for single usage.
Like the technical transformation the banking industry made following the terrorist attacks, the “Mecca of finance” as Okura called it, also went through a physical change because “now you have Tiffany”™s and BMW right on Wall Street.”
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He remains close to the finance world ”“ only now, as a spectator.
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Okura said an economic turnaround could begin next year and heavily depends on the real estate market.
“In the U.S., the real estate crisis was partly a result of speculation,” he said. “The stock market was going up. Real estate prices were going up. And so people borrowed to invest. Unless the supply and demand starts to equalize, the situation is not going to resolve that quickly.”
He said last fall following the sharp downturn, a drastic hiring freeze occurred.
“Now, many are beginning to open positions and I think things are starting to stabilize,” he said. “No matter what happens in the market, what goes up must come down.”
