A much-needed culture shock: How Japan's asset managers are bringing gender diversity to the 21st century

Rethinking old gender norms still a challenge

As Tokyo attempts to reinvent itself as a hub of global finance and foreign asset managers threaten to vote against Japanese companies without women on their boards, the country's financial industry is under pressure to improve gender diversity.

Japan ranked just 121 out of 153 countries on the World Economic Forum's latest Global Gender Gap Index. This, combined with public remarks such as those of the now-ousted Tokyo Olympics' president Yoshiro Mori, who said that women talk too much in meetings, suggests the diversity agenda is moving backwards, rather than forwards. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party still does not allow women to speak at  key meetings. "We have some really specific structural issues in the industry," Stefanie Drews, senior corporate managing director at the Tokyo-based Nikko Asset Management, told Inve...