 Welcome to Looking to the East. I'm your host, Steve Zercher. I'm a professor and dean at Kansai Gaida University. Thank you very much for tuning into the show. We have a very interesting topic today. I'm going to talk about women professionals working women in Japan, which has some complications this will get into through the course of this half hour. Mary Ann and I have been working together. I don't know how long has it been, 10 years or so? Mary Ann with the American Chamber of Commerce. Mary Ann recently was the chairwoman of the Women in Business Diversity Inclusion Committee with the ACCJ. And she's a businesswoman herself. She does coaching workshops focusing on women empowerment. So thank you, Mary Ann, for attending today. And I also have one of my former students with me today. So she's here. She's getting ready to start her professional life. She's graduated or she will graduate very soon from Kansai Gaida University. She will be starting working at a tech company up in Tokyo. It's based in Tokyo, right? Yeah. Is that correct? Yeah, just starting. So Chihiro, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for attending and being a part of this. Thank you. Yeah. So what triggered this show in my mind was about a month or so ago, Eric, if we can pull up the picture of Mori-san. This individual, yeah, there we go. He is a former prime minister of the country. He's in his 80s. He was the president of the Japan Olympic Committee about a month or so ago in response to a question about diversity on the Japan Olympic Committee. That is including more women. His response, I'm paraphrasing here, was that, well, the thing about women is that they take too long to explain things and that we would have to limit their time on the committee because listening to them is annoying. And this caused a tremendous negative reaction. And there were immediate calls for him to resign. And eventually, he did resign. So this triggered, once again, an analysis or a look at the role of women in the workplace and also in government in Japan. And this is an ongoing issue. Mary-Ann and I have been working on this for a long, long time. In addition, a graph from the economist came out just a few days ago. And hopefully, we can get that up. But otherwise, if not, it shows a list of the countries in terms of rankings to be the best place for working women. Number one is Sweden. Number two is Iceland. Number three is Finland. We go through the Scandinavian countries, continue through Slovakia, Italy, Hungary, Australia, US, Israel, Czech, Netherlands, Greece, Turkey, and then Japan. So Japan is ranked 28th. Not last on this list. South Korea is lower. And I've worked in South Korea. And actually, it is harder for working women in South Korea based on my observation than it is in Japan. So these events and this graph maybe think that it would be good to bring in some women, professional women from Japan, either starting their career in the case of Marianne, someone who's been working for quite a number of years. How long have you been in Japan, Marianne, now? Well, I came as a student. So if I include all of those years, 30 years. Right. So Marianne, what do you think about this? You were the leader of the Women in Business Committee. We were the first committee to form in the Kansai region. We created this kind of organization and effort to try and empower women. You've been involved with it a long time. As a leader for many, many years. What is your opinion about Mordi and about this graphic from the Economist listing Japan 28? We've worked so hard, but it doesn't seem to be. We don't seem to be making much progress. I mean, I hope that's not an unfair statement. But what do you think? Well, I could be called optimistic. Certainly, what you've shown doesn't bring around feelings of hope. I think Mordi is an 83-year-old man. And I think if you ask most 83-year-old men, you may get some kind of similar statement. This is not excusing at all what he said. But it highlighted where we are, that we're not moving forward. However, if we look at younger generations, I think that we can see a real shift in expectations around what women will do, what partners. You know, that partners would be working women. And they've shown that actually I saw some data that was out of from Cathy Matsuya Goldman Sachs. And it showed that the number of millennial males expecting wives to be housewives versus working women had completely shifted. So those numbers had shifted. So I do think that we're up for some improvement in the future. But I do agree that the numbers are extremely depressing. And in fact, particularly at Japanese companies, meaning not foreign capital-based companies, the situation for women is still pretty dire. Yeah. Yeah, well, we have a young woman. You're not a millennial. You're too young for that, right? I don't know what's next, but you're just graduating from college. But before we turn to you, one other thing I'd like to point out to the audience is that it's not only the efforts of people like Marianne and myself, who have a, because of maybe our Western background, our own personal beliefs, want to try and make it better for women. I'm the dean of the Asian Studies program. 50% of my hire is over the last three and a half years I've been women, and that's not by accident. I've been doing that on purpose. So those of us at an individual level are trying to contribute to empowering women and to try and diversify the professors at my university. But also the government under the previous Prime Minister Abe, when he came in, in part because of Kathy Matsui, who Marianne just mentioned, made diversity and inclusion of women, one of the central pillars of his economic efforts, his revitalization of Japan. And he targeted women management and representation in the government at 30%. And over the last 10 years, since he's made those announcements, it has not changed. In fact, the government recently rescinded its 30% goal for 2020 because it's not even close. The numbers in Japan run around 7% or 8% for higher management and also for government representation, which is why Japan's rated so low. So, Chihiro, do you agree with Marianne that your generation offers some hope despite all these negative numbers and reports and the failure of the Abe government to do anything really to help? In fact, are the ranking of Japan has gone down over the last 10 years rather than gone up under this initiative? Well, I agree with the heart. Like, well, you know, like the, so what he said, what Mori said was something very negative. But I think the society and education made him, I mean, like when he was born, like he doesn't think about like, oh, men are better than women or something like that. The society, the Japanese society and education made him. And actually older people in Japan think the same thing, I think. And in terms of the progress. Let me ask you, by older, is that like over 25 or over 35? Older, like. Over 50? What does older mean to you? 50, 60. 50, 60. That's us, Mori. Yeah. I'm feeling old. Oh, I'm sorry. No, don't apologize. No, I'm just. OK, but I forget what I said. Your generation differently. I think my generation, I don't know. I think it's up to the person for comparing it with like 50s and 60s. Our generation is still like equal between men and women. Really? Like, I don't know. I think so. I hope so. OK. In my class, you were in my class last semester, you gave several presentations about women, opportunity in Japan, and also diversity. How did the other students respond to that? I mean, I responded positively. I think I gave you an A in my class, if I remember right. But did the other students say, oh, that was a good presentation, and they agreed with what you were talking about? Yes. I mean, like during the presentation, they just responded like, oh, yeah, I agree with me. I agree with me. And still, there is a lot of issue about the equality between men and women in Japan. And so it's one of culture things. It's about something about the culture. Like culturally, men were treated better than women in Japan. It's not in Japan. I mean, it's not only in Japan, but Japan had such a strong sense of the concept that men are better than women. And it's still continuing. And yeah. OK. All right, I want to get back to you and ask you about how you're starting your career and the company that you chose. But Mary Ann, maybe I can talk to you a little bit. You have been focusing on women empowerment now as a part of your professional career. Can you explain to me how you do that and what the results are and so forth? You're touching individual women and trying to show them that perhaps their professional goals can be greater than what they think they are or maybe they can rise higher in the company than what they maybe previously thought. This is an issue I see sometimes with my students, not with Chihiro. She fortunately is very progressive and I can predict that she'll do very well. But many times when I talk to women at the university level, their own dreams are restricted by what they believe they're able to do because Japan's culture, like Chihiro was talking about, is telling them that their role is not in business or not as a professional career. Maybe not directly, but certainly indirectly that's there. Yeah, there are a lot of stereotypes, I think that start when we're in school, when we're looking for role models. Who do we see on TV? Who do we see, what are the roles that we see people playing? Little by little, I like to see some wins in that category. But I think before I talk about the work I do, I think you've touched on something really important which is not only do women not see themselves as able to do it because they've been told they shouldn't. But the way that the Japan's work ethic, it doesn't make it very attractive. I think if we looked at how people worked, that if you're working for a traditional company, let's just imagine you're a man because most people are probably currently, less women are managers. They come home at nine or 10 at night, they have a little bit of time, they go to sleep and they go back in the morning and it continues. And I think part of this is that if you wanna have working women, women need a partner who can support in the home as well. And this is really hard if your partner is coming home at 10 o'clock. So it can't be that policies to support women, oh, women, you can go home early just to pick up your kid and your house, and men, you still have to work till 10 o'clock. This isn't helpful. We need some overall reform in how we think about work so that it looks possible to have both because you can also have a partner who can be around. And this is why the Icelandic, the Scandinavian countries are always at the top because they have societal structures in place that allow people to have lives outside of work. And I think that's really what we all want. And to quote, you know, Kathie Matzi again, I heard her speak that she actually has more young men coming now to talk about work-life balance than women even, that everyone really wants a sustainable lifestyle. And so I think one piece of that is making work look doable. And the other piece is, of course, what you said, helping women to feel confident, to project confidence. And that's a lot of what I do is around executive presence and how to help women look ready. They may be ready, but they may not be looking ready to the people around them. So helping bring out that inner confidence and help them look a little more ready for the next step. Interesting. Okay, so Chihiro, you are taking your first step into a professional career. You're joining a tech company. Yes. And I'm sure you thought about the working condition. It seems to be in my email communication that you're already working for them. It seems like you're so busy, you're not even getting paid yet, right? Because you don't officially start until April 1st. But you told me you've been going to Tokyo and making trips. So they're making you busy already. Did this point that Mary Ann raised, and I think it's a very interesting, important one, about working conditions in Japan are obsessive, not just for women, but also for men as well. Is that something you thought about? Yes. Because our generation, especially younger generation, focus on the balance between working and just private life. So yeah, I think it's very important to have that good balance between them. Okay, so when you interviewed with your company, did you try and get a sense that you can do that? You'll be able to have a balanced work life. And also another question that I was kind of alluding to earlier was, is your company one where there are women in management or you feel that as a woman, you'll have a fair chance? Have you thought about those things or are you just, you're happy to have a job with the tech company? It sounds like a very good opportunity for you. Well, I would love to have the balance between working and private life. Even I am young, kind of young. But it seems a little bit harder for me to take the balance when I was, when I just started the job. Because there's a lot of things that I have to learn and that I have to remember. And it's just like, so there's a lot of things that I have to input. And so I think it's kind of hard for me to take the balance, I don't know, until maybe, I don't know, like in four years, three years, I don't know. And yeah. All right. And did you check out the company? Does it have women leaders in it? So I have to say that I'm sorry to interrupt but I come from the tech industry and it's awful. It's Silicon Valley. It's pretty much dominated by men. There's some exceptions of course, like the CEO at Facebook, there's a few but for the most part, it's dominated by men. Exactly. Okay, so the company you're joining is the managers or primarily men? Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, Marianne, what kind of advice would you offer Chihiro as she's starting her career? It sounds like, and I can certainly understand that she's feeling that for the initial years of working in professional life, she has to pay her dues. So maybe this work-life balance issue will not be one that she can achieve potentially. But if she was in one of your workshops, so what advice would you offer to her? But you want to spot, Marianne? Oh no, that's fine. I think about work-life balance, I think I've also heard it called work-life equilibrium that really it's not a balance, but there's different times in life when we have a different amount of time that we get, balance looks different and different times in life. So Chihiro, I think you've done a great job of thinking about that in advance. But what I would, if I was going to give you advice, I would have a couple of things I'd say. And one is that as women, as females, we often grow up with this idea that, well, if I do a good job and I do my work on time, I'll be recognized and I'll get a promotion. And in the work world, we need to be a little, we need to make more efforts to be visible, to make sure that our work is being seen, that we're building relationships with people who can support us, that we're talking about what we want to achieve. And I appreciate there are cultural differences in this, between maybe how it would be discussed in Japanese or in a Japanese company versus perhaps in an American or a foreign capital company, but it's still really important to be, not just keep your head down and do the work, but to be really proactive in showing what you can do and what you want to do. That's one thing. The second is around feedback and criticism. And as we work, I think particularly women and men as well, but particularly women, when we get constructive feedback or negative feedback, we take it really personally. And I think there's a real difference in how women and men or boys and girls growing up react to that kind of criticism. And so to look at feedback as simply information from the person giving you the feedback, not that I'm good or bad, but oh, that person prefers a work style like this or prefers me to do my work like this. And so to not take things internally, but to just take them as information that you can evaluate and decide what you want to do with it. So not overemphasizing what you hear because like you said, some people are going to be older. They may not have the same mindset and the same aspirations that you have. So not to let that impact what you want to do and the dreams that you have for yourself. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I think the visibility point is a good one. And I think Japanese students, men and women are both taught to be very humble and to not present themselves too strongly because that would be considered to be too aggressive. Whereas, hero, you've taken classes with foreign students and do you know how noisy they are? And they're all European, they're always talking, right? So it's hard for Japanese people, men or women to get a word in otherwise. So that culture teaches people to be more aggressive and stand up for themselves. My wife went to Berkeley, Berkeley's like a zoo. Everyone is raising their hand. Harvard's this way too. Everyone's trying to raise their hand because you're being graded on how often you speak. So I think that's a very good point that in general that Mary Ann makes and I think in particular for Japanese women. So we're getting close to time here. I want to end on a positive note, despite all of this unfortunate comments from leading government officials and the economist's rating and other aspects. Probably Mary Ann, I don't know if you'd agree with me. It seems to me that the change in Japan in terms of women having a greater impact will occur on an individual by individual basis. It'll kind of be a grassroots movement. I just don't see leadership coming from the government and so forth. So it'll take women to move through the ranks, to be up at higher levels. So where they can set policy, where they can begin to change the work environment to encourage women. And you and I both know an example of a extremely successful Japanese woman, Mari Nogami. She's now a president level at Takeda, which is the largest pharmaceutical company. She worked at Procter & Gamble and then went to AstraZeneca. So she's climbed up the ladder and is probably one of the highest ranked women in Japan that we know. And she was a founder of the Women in Business Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce. So Mary Ann, maybe some, you know her better than I do. Maybe some comments on how she has been able to achieve this incredible success. Yeah, Mari is a great success story. And it was funny in advance of this, I was curious. How many Japanese CEOs could I, female CEOs could I name? And it's true, there weren't that many. But she is a lovely story. And I think Mari's success has to do with being very clear on what she wanted. She talks a lot about how we market ourselves and putting, figuring out what your strengths are and how you can work towards your strengths to differentiate yourself. So she, I believe has a marketing background and has done several sessions for young leaders that I've observed talking about that. And so she's obviously done that herself and moved herself through knowing that she wanted to lead a company one day. And as you said, now president of Takeda Consumer Healthcare and continuing to encourage what I love is to see her giving back and continuing to mentor both men and women but particularly encouraging women to find their difference, to find the, I'm not a marketer so now I get the blue sea and the red sea confused. But anyway, to find the ocean where you can really show your stuff and succeed. So I think she and then Eriko Asai, the president of GE, another great example. And recently, you know, Uniqlo. Yeah, Naisan appointed the first female CEO of Uniqlo. I think that was last year. Wow, I didn't know that. Well, I actually just saw it online. So I should perhaps check my sources before I speak on TV. But I was like, oh, I didn't know that either. So that was encouraging. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for the non-Japanese Euryunai is the CEO president of Uniqlo, one of the wealthiest individuals in Japan. And I've attended a presentation by him. He is in his own way, a very progressive in how he manages his company. And supports diversity and leadership development. So I'm not surprised that he's one of the people who was making progress on that front. So Chihiro, I guess the last question, we have like one minute left or so now before we have to close. What are your goals? Are you gonna become the president of the company you're joining at some point? Or are you gonna start your own business down the road? What do you see unfolding for your professional career? Well, so being a leader in IT industry is still hard for women, especially for women. So I want to be a kind of model being a leader in IT technology industry. So maybe I want to be like a CIO or something like that. OK. That makes me think of Marianne of Namba-san, the DNA. Yeah, DNA. There's a woman. Yeah, she's probably the most famous woman to hear. You should study her. She was a consultant for NZ and then started her own business. And I read just recently she is now the president of the K-Donrin. She's the first, or not president, I think like vice president or she's on the executive board. On the executive board, right. Yeah, that's what it was. So the very first female to be included in that club, which previously had been only men for decades and decades. And that's important because then, you know, young women like Chihiro see a visual. Oh, there's a woman in there too. And hopefully soon then it will be two, not the token. And I don't mean token, but I mean, more is better, right? I mean, we don't think anything of seeing a 90% male board. So what if it is, you know, wouldn't it be amazing to see a 90% female board? Go Chihiro, go. Yay. OK, well, thank you so much. We have to wrap up. We're running out of time. As I mentioned, Marianne, this just flies back when we're flies through the show when we're on air. So we've gone through the 30 minutes. We have to wrap up. So Chihiro, thank you so much for participating and sharing your opinions and your ideas with us. Marianne, of course, thank you so much for participating in this and thanks for your work and in trying to make it better in Japan and having women feel that they can do more and be more successful in their careers over time. It's so important. Thank you. It's really lovely to be here and share ideas with you and be energized by Chihiro's energy as well. So I appreciate the opportunity. All right, great. So that's it. I'll see you guys all in two weeks. I'm thinking about the next topic as we face to the east with my show. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Bye-bye, everyone.