64 Time June 20/June 27, 2022
women.) A reorganization of the TSE in April 2022
required that at least one-third of the board mem-
bers at companies listed in its top tier be indepen-
dent directors. Recent years have also seen an in-
creasing focus on ESG (environmental, social, and
governance) investing.
In a speech in March to mark International
Women’s Day, Minister of Gender Equality
Seiko Noda, one of the nation’s most promi-
nent female politicians, acknowledged Japan’s
gender- equality issues and called for the coun-
try to make improvements at “an unprecedented
speed.” She said the government will “do its ut-
most” to achieve goals set out in its Fifth Basic
Plan for Gender Equality, which calls for raising
the proportion of women in leadership positions
to about 30% of the total “as early as possible
during the 2020s.”
But though empowering women is an obvious
way to improve the nation’s productivity, “there
hasn’t been the level of focus on gender diver-
sity as much as prior administrations,” says Kathy
Matsui, one of three women who run MPower
Partners, Japan’s first venture-capital fund fo-
cused on ESG investing. Matsui is credited with
coming up with former Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe’s “Womenomics” policies during her time
at Goldman Sachs. While a government goal to
increase the proportion of women in leadership
positions remains in place, “there has not been
much discussion about exactly what needs to
change for that target to be reached,” Matsui says.
OnBOard is nOt the first or only company
working to improve board diversity in Japan. For
example, the investment firm Oasis and the Board
Director Training Institute of Japan announced in
March a new initiative to sponsor director- training
courses for women. But Matsui says OnBoard’s
work is vital. “The common excuse many compa-
nies give for why they can’t increase diversity is
because they say, ‘There are not enough qualified
women.’ And so I think through [Koshi’s] efforts,
through other organizations’ efforts, to identify
qualified candidates—or, frankly, if they’re not
qualified, to train them... every effort in that di-
rection is a positive step.”
Koshi herself sits on the boards of SoftBank
Corp. and the telecommunications company
V-cube Inc. So far, OnBoard has introduced 160
candidates to 29 companies. The plan for 2022 is
to introduce over 500 more, and put around 30
on corporate boards. Not everyone introduced
is appointed, but corporate lawyer Aya Nomura
is among those who were. The 44-year-old, who
lives in Tokyo and has two children, ages 6 and 11,
says she often attended shareholder meetings as
a lawyer, and what she saw upset her. There were
often “just a bunch of men standing on a stage
and meeting shareholders; there are pretty much
no women.” Although she was struggling at work
at the time, she’d never considered a move into
corporate governance. “In relation to my career,
I felt that being an outside board member was a
very risky job, with a lot of legal responsibility,”
Nomura says. She found OnBoard while searching
online, and attended several seminars, including
one in which female board members talked about
their experiences. They’d also felt overwhelmed
and alone in corporate Japan at times, and shared
advice on how to navigate it. “One of the teachers
said, ‘Not taking risks is a risk itself,’ which was an
eye-opener for me,” says Nomura.
After her OnBoard training, Nomura was
matched with an entertainment company and ap-
pointed as an outside director, a role she started
in late April. It’s turned out to be a great fit. “Out-
side directors are not expected to contribute to a
company by the length of time they spend in of-
fice, but expected to come up with certain results.
So I feel that outside boards are actually good job
opportunities for those who are mothers, because
working mothers are always seeking to make the
most out of the limited time we have every day,”
she says. “I read articles and research papers in
my spare time, and take online courses from
home. Recently, I was listening to an e-learning
course at double the speed while I was watching
my kid’s soccer game.”
The two face different challenges, but Koshi
is a role model for Nomura. “I imagine becom-
ing so successful like her; she’s a very impressive
woman,” she says of Koshi. “I’m really glad that
a person like her is leading the way for women
in Japan.” —With reporting by mayako ShibaTa/
Tokyo and eloiSe barry/london □△
Koshi, center,
celebrates
her election
in 2012 as
the youngest
woman to
serve as a
mayor in JapanSTR/JIJI PRESS/AFP/GETTY IMAGESWORLD ECONOMIC FORUM