Sideway Inc., which promotes a lifestyle that promotes healthy mind and body through snowboarding, has appointed professional snowboarder Tatsuki Inamura, who previously worked with Okamoto as a HYWOD rider, as its director.
Sideway Co., Ltd. is involved in the business of making snowboarding more fun from the ground up, with three pillars: the world-class snow park [THE PARKS], Japan's largest off-season training facility [Osaka KINGS], and Japan's largest snowboarding event [COWDAY]. The company aims to develop snowboarding as a more entertaining "sport" and "game," and to develop it into a content that has an impact on society.
Okamoto is not only a professional rider, but in addition to his activities with Sideway, he is also involved in a wide range of activities, including diversifying ski and snowboarding experiences with the yukiyama app, working to solve various issues in ski resort management and digital transformation for information dissemination, and supporting tournaments as an athlete committee member of the Japan Paralympic Committee and a snowboard committee member of SAJ.
By welcoming Inamura to the team, who has a similar background to himself and is not only a professional but also serves as coach of the Japanese Olympic team, and has knowledge and know-how in the areas of marketing and consulting, Sideway aims to further expand its business overall by strengthening not only its management structure but also its project management system to be able to respond to the diversifying snowboarding industry.
With Inamura joining the company, COWDAY's business will be restructured into SCENE, which produces creative videos of nature (snow), in addition to the comprehensive ski and snowboard event business that includes COWDAY. As the division manager, he will change the current conventional wisdom about skiing and snowboarding with a young team structure with an average age of 20s and a strong driving force that does not rely on inertia.
Regarding his appointment as Sideway's executive officer, Inamura said:
"I am extremely honored to be appointed as a director, and I am also very aware of the weight of the responsibility that comes with it. Thanks to the many experiences I have had through snowboarding since I was a child, I am still able to lead fulfilling lives every day, engaged in the sport I love.
I have learned a lot from our CEO, Okamoto, through snowboarding. I am grateful that he supported my challenge when we launched the event business as a new business for Sideway three years ago. I am very happy to be working towards the same goal as Okamoto, once a professional snowboarder and now as the person who carries the company on my shoulders.
From now on, we will use our youthful energy and momentum to get others involved and do our best to contribute to creating an industry where more people can enjoy snowboarding. At the same time, by laying the foundation for this, I hope to become a model case for riders looking for a second career and to create an opportunity for young people to enter the snowboarding industry."
Under this new structure, the Events and Video Division, which will become an independent company called SCENE, will not only promote COWDAY as the slopestyle event that leads to the Olympics, but also as the COWDAY CREATIVE FEST, a festival where video creators from various genres active in Japan visualize the charms of snow, as well as re-hosting the street event that was held in front of Osaka Station in 2019, and holding events in the off-season summer. The division will then work to grow snowboarding into content that can be enjoyed throughout the year, creating an environment that is easy for companies to participate in, like during the snowboarding bubble, and striving to "realize the holding of permanently sustainable snow events."
<Brief biography of Inamura>
Tatsuki Inamura
Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1995. He started snowboarding at the age of 7 and signed a professional contract with SALOMON SNOWBOARDING at the age of 12. At the age of 19, he was selected for the first snowboarding/slopestyle national team and competed in numerous world competitions such as the World Cup and World Championships as a representative of Japan, but he retired from competitions due to repeated injuries. After that, he changed the form of his activities and is now involved in developing athletes as a coach for the Japanese snowboarding/slopestyle national team, while also serving as a marketing advisor for the All Japan Ski Federation. In addition, he has been involved in COWDAY, one of Japan's largest snowboarding contests, since 2018, and in 2021, he launched an event division specializing in snowboarding event management, and is in charge of the overall direction of the "UZUMAKI", "NISSAN X-TRAIL e-4ORCE RAIL JAM", and "NEKOMA MOUNTAIN FEST" events. He is actively working while making use of his own experience.
[About Sideway, Inc.]
SIDEWAYproposes a lifestyle that makes you feel healthy in mind and body through skiing. We offer a world-class snow park, the largest off-season training facility in Japan, a variety of events centered around COWDAY, and cinematic images of the great outdoors. By continuing to pursue "style" in its essence, rather than relying on inertia, we aim to develop skiing and snowboarding into a more stimulating and entertaining pastime.
Special video before the release of HYWOD's seventh album "DIVISION" - HYWOD TV7 [INAMURA]
