Japan Inc opens door to more women directors, but managers remain rare
31/01/2024 07:27
By Anton Bridge
TOKYO, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Mitsuko Tottori's appointment
as Japan Airlines' 9201.T next president makes her something
of a rarity in Japan - a female head of a well known company.
While Japanese firms have rapidly lifted the number of
female board members in recent years, most are outside
directors. Change from within is slower in coming.
Under pressure from the Japanese government, the Tokyo Stock
Exchange (TSE) and foreign investors, firms have been scrambling
to improve diversity, including on their boards, bringing in
external directors who are often lawyers, academics and
accountants.
But the diversity push isn't as broad as it could be,
critics and governance experts say. Some 30% of women directors
sit on multiple boards, double the percentage of men, according
to a study of all TSE-listed firms by governance consultancy
ProNed.
This reflects Japan's difficulty in promoting from the
inside - both board members and company executives - after years
of neglecting to cultivate a pipeline of potential women
managers, they say.
Traditionally, many Japanese companies had rigid hiring
systems classifying employees as either "career track" or
"non-career track" - with the non-career workers often the women
who did administrative work.
"It's very difficult to convince people of the value of
diversity when they haven't seen it in action," Keiko Tashiro, a
director and vice president of Daiwa Securities, told Reuters in
Davos earlier this month. Since 2005, Daiwa has had measures in
place to train new generations of female leaders.
Tashiro is one of the most senior women in Japanese finance,
where, like many industries, the top echelons remain
overwhelmingly male.
Women account for only 13.4% of directors and executive
officers at the 1,836 firms listed on the TSE's "prime" market,
and of these a mere 13% are internal hires.
"Many companies say they don't want to promote unqualified
females too quickly," says Yuko Yasuda, a director at governance
consulting firm Board Advisors Japan. "It may be an excuse."
There are signs of change. Yasuda says more than half of
inquiries for board posts are for women and clients are
increasingly looking for direct management experience.
IMPOSTER SYNDROME
Finding women with experience, however, is challenging. Up
to now, many Japanese women haven't even entertained the
prospect of becoming managers.
"Imposter syndrome is especially strong in Japan," said a
spokesperson for HR services provider Recruit Holdings 6098.T .
The owner of platforms such as job listing website Indeed
and company review website Glassdoor, Recruit has made changing
this mindset central to its initiatives supporting women's
careers.
"We encourage people to further their careers by having
various experiences early on," the spokesperson said.
To extend opportunities for management training to a wider
pool of candidates, Recruit's domestic subsidiary has created a
checklist of core competencies necessary to perform each
first-line management position.
It says this helps undo unconscious biases that in the past
would privilege "macho" qualities, such as the capacity to work
at all hours, and has raised the number of female candidates for
each position by a factor of 1.7 and that of men by 1.4.
But initatives such as these take years to filter through to
the top, leaving ambitious Japanese women with few role models
to inspire and guide them.
Tottori told a JAL press conference earlier this month that
she hoped her appointment would encourage women who are
struggling with their careers or big life events.
Notwithstanding Tottori, the current crop of female leaders
often come from privileged backgrounds or have made immense
sacrifices to succeed at work, said Etsuko Tsugihara, founder
and CEO of public relations firm Sunny Side Up Group 2180.T
and one of only around 14 women heading a "prime" listed
Japanese firm.
"When I went to the hospital to give birth, I came straight
from the office. Then I was back at work two weeks later,"
Tsugihara recalled. "It put off other women from doing the
same."
Now the employee welfare programme at Tsugihara's firm
encourages work-life balance for both female and male staff and
supports long-term life planning by subsidising blood
screenings, fertility-related hormonal tests and even egg
freezing.
"To be a role model you have to have a healthier, richer
life," Tsugihara said.
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At Japan Airlines, bankruptcy helped lay groundwork for first
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FACTBOX on Japan's small cohort of listed firms led by women
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(Reporting by Anton Bridge; Additional reporting by Antoni
Slodkowski; Editing by David Dolan and Jacqueline Wong)
((Anton.Bridge@thomsonreuters.com;))