Marco Crivelli has a guiding principle that he applies to personal relationships and to wider circles of society. He said: "It is very rewarding to give something back to your parents. And since we are so lucky, I have always wanted to do something for society." Here in Tokyo, he is chairman of the Foreign Community Supporting Committee, which has been assisting the projects of YMCA Japan since 1957.
Not yet 50, Crivelli is tidy-minded, and very capable of dealing reliably with the constant demands of his work and his volunteer commitments. His mother tongue is Italian, the language of both his parents, who were living in the southern part of Switzerland where he was born. He now adds Japanese to his excellent English, German and French.
His father was a businessman, and so is Crivelli. "Sometimes in my early life I dreamed of becoming a farmer," he said. Ten years ago he realized that dream. He bought a deer-breeding farm in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.