ACCJ VIRTUAL EVENT
Coffee & Conversation: How to Nurture Female Employees, with Kathy Matsui By Megan Casson
T
he American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) has long been dedicated to promoting the advancement of women in the workplace, and the Women in Business (WIB) Committee has encouraged progress through its white papers and numerous events, such as the Women in Business Summit, Bella Nova Nights networking sessions, and lun cheons featuring guest speakers who inspire by sharing their experiences and advice. The latest such event took place on August 20 when Goldman Sachs Japan Vice Chair Kathy Matsui spoke at a WIB Coffee & Conversation webinar. Matsui, who is also co-head of macro research in Asia and chief Japan equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, talked about her new book, How to Nurture Female Employees. The discussion, which was moderated by news presenter Yuka Sato, focused on what has changed since Matsui wrote her groundbreaking report entitled “Womenomics” in 1999 and covered topics such as unconscious bias and changes companies can make to better foster gender diversity. NEWLY PUBLISHED Matsui began by discussing how to ensure that female employees are being nurtured in their roles to improve their career pro gression. Having built a long and successful career for herself, she has worked tirelessly to advocate gender equality and workplace opportunities for women. “What I was struck by was, even if we had the most perfect external environment or infrastructure for women to thrive in Japan, there is still a struggle inside organizations. How are women’s careers managed? What kind of mentorship or sponsorship are they being provided? That kind of guidance is an area that, frankly, the government has very little capability of intervening in with policy measures,” she said. “So, I really wanted to share some tips, lessons learned, and mistakes I’ve made working in a pretty male-dominated industry in Japan for 30 years.” She also highlighted the importance of diversity and inclu sion regarding women in business, as well as other minority groups, and how it benefits companies in terms of busi ness growth. “Of course, diversity is not just defined as women. We have the LGBTQ+ community, we have foreigners in Japan, we have persons with disabilities. It’s a very broad range,” she said. “But, to me, we have seen enough evidence, or empirical studies, globally—and we’ve done work here in Japan—to prove empirically that more diverse management and more
10
THE ACCJ JOURNAL
n
SEPTEMBER 2020
diverse leadership is positively correlated with higher returns on equity. For example, profitability, higher revenue growth, and better stock performance.” It has been argued that Japan’s male-dominated environment has worked. The country did very well with such a labor force in the years following World War II. However, as Matsui pointed out, not all good things last forever, and not all models have that longevity. “If you’re in a rocket ship and you’re blasting away at a 45-degree angle, of course that is the right model. Continue to do what you have been doing, because that rocket ship is going up,” she said. “But what if that rocket ship starts to plateau and go south?” she asked, noting that the aging population is predicted to cause Japan’s workforce to shrink by a massive 40 percent by 2055. “If that rocket ship is now plateauing and going south, you cannot continue to do the things you were doing yesterday, or even today, and expect that you’re going to grow tomorrow without some new ideas. And where does that injection of creativity and innovation come from? In most cases, I think it comes from people with different backgrounds.”
