Daiei to Get Japan's First Senior Female Exec

[Mulboyne]

[GuyJean]

Times: Japan's top firms to get first female president

Cool! I wonder if she's just a soundless 'symbol'..

GJ

[dimwit]

She'll fit in well. For one thing she has the requiste serpentine smile that most senior executives in Japan seem to possess.

[Captain Japan]

[GuyJean]

Can't wait to see what she does for Daiei...

You've come a long way, baby.

GJ

[Mulboyne]

[Captain Japan]

[GuyJean]

That can't be "feminine sensibility." It sounds like she's serving dinner...

Or tea.

GJ

[GuyJean]

Ok then, who invented the Race Queen?

Didn't Europe have them before Japan?..

GJ

[Captain Japan]

How Sexism in Japan Worsens Its Debt Outlook: William Pesek Jr.
Bloomberg

March 7 (Bloomberg) -- That faint cracking noise heard around Japan this week is the sound of its glass ceiling being breached.

At least that's the hope as this male-dominated society waits to see if a woman will run a major Japanese company for the first time. BMW Tokyo Corp. President Fumiko Hayashi, 58, has been proposed for the presidency of retailer Daiei Inc.

Never mind it's among the most thankless jobs in Japan -- Daiei is perhaps the nation's most notorious zombie company -- it would be an important step forward. Japan has done little to empower women and many companies are reluctant to increase their role in making decisions.

Stories like Hayashi's -- if she does get the top Daiei job or at the least is named a corporate director -- are all too rare in the world's No. 2 economy. Japan has been slow to realize underutilizing its female workforce is an economic problem that indirectly adds to its huge public debt.

Women here have made strides rising through the ranks. Discrimination has been formally banned. More and more women are trading in their office-lady, or OL, uniforms that make them look like 1970s airhostesses and forging their own future. Yet women still have few chances to enter the executive suite, unless they're serving tea to the men who work there or, at best, playing a supporting role.

Corporate Women Directors International, a U.S. non-profit organization, last year pointed out that only two women sit on the boards of 27 Japanese companies listed on Fortune's Global 200 list. All 78 U.S. companies on the list had at least one female board member....the rest...

I think Pesek Jr. makes a lot of good points in his articles about Japan. And because things rarely change around here he repeats himself a lot. Discrimination against women in the workplace is a common topic. And I think he looks at this issue from the wrong perspective (i.e. women are being held back by corporate Japan). I think if the pros and cons were presented fairly to the average woman I think it'd be tough to find a large number who'd switch to a system that gave them more responsibility, status, etc. (in other words become the equivalent of salarymen). I just can't see it happening.

[Taro Toporific]

NHK TV News is reporting this morning that the mega-f'ed up supermarket chain operator Daiei Inc which is under receivership of Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan will have a new FEMALE "shacho", Fumiko Hayashi (see her profile).
NHK sure was in love with her and spent 5 minutes airtime yammering on this huge advance for Japanese women.

Daiei shareholders stamp rehab
The Japan Times, March 31, 2005
... After the shareholders' meeting, Daiei announced that Fumiko Hayashi, 58, a former president of BMW Tokyo Corp., would become an adviser as of Friday. She is expected to be named chief executive officer when Daiei's new leadership formally takes the helm in late May......more..

[Mulboyne]

I failed to realize when I saw this story last week that Nonaka is...gasp...a woman! The press seemed more interested in the fact she was a journalist

Tomoyo Nonaka
Bizweek: Sanyo picks ex-newsman as chief exec
Struggling electronics maker Sanyo Electric named former journalist Tomoyo Nonaka as its chief executive yesterday, setting the stage for her to become one of the few women running a big Japanese company...Japan's third-largest consumer electronics maker said Nonaka, who sits on several government panels and became an outside director at Sanyo in 2002, will replace Satoshi Iue as chairman and Yukinori Kuwano as CEO, pending shareholder approval. If shareholders give Nonaka the nod, she would be the first woman to head a major Japanese electronics company, breaking ground in an industry that is almost exclusively run by middle-aged men. She is 50 and has extensive experience abroad.

[L S]

More outsiders at Daiei. I like it....with new CEO from BMW and this guy from HP, Pana and Apple, they have BRANDing galore plus IT....could help redirect company and find winning startegy. Just need goof CFO now...

Japan's struggling supermarket Daiei turns to IT expert in new shakeup
TOKYO, (AFP) - Japanese retailer Daiei, struggling under a mountain of debt, said it would turn to the tech-savvy head of Hewlett-Packard's local unit for its day-to-day boss, the latest new face hoped to shake up the company.

Yasuyuki Higuchi, a 47-year-old career IT expert, will be president under new Daiei chairwoman Fumiko Hayashi, one of Japan's top women executives who took the job last month after a long stint with the local unit of German luxury carmaker BMW.

Higuchi has been president of Hewlett-Packard Japan since May 2003 after stints at Panasonic brand maker Matsushita Electric and Apple Computer.

A Daiei spokeswoman said the sponsors of the ailing supermarket chain's rehabilitation had proposed his name and that the decision would come into force when the board of directors met Friday and a shareholders annual meeting in May.

MORE

[Mulboyne]

Here's Hayashi unveiling the new logo to replace the old Nakauchi-era Daiei mark.

[Mulboyne]

"Daiei Inc. Chairwoman Fumiko Hayashi urges customers to try the firm's new recooked products"
Japan Times: Daiei gives TV dinners a promotional push
Daiei Inc. is positioning packaged dinners as one of the main products it will promote at its stores nationwide, Chairwoman Fumiko Hayashi and President Yasuyuki Higuchi said Thursday. The major supermarket chain has introduced 54 new precooked dishes, which have been developed along with Tsuji Cooking School. "We intend to boost the sales of precooked dishes 10 percent year-on-year," Higuchi said.

[American Oyaji]

It would take a Japanese woman to introduce that.

[Greji]

It would take a Japanese woman to introduce that.

I think she was a race queen. Somewhere I have a picture with her on the hood of a Model "T"!

[Mulboyne]

Bizweek: Sanyo picks ex-newsman as chief exec

Reuters: Japan's Sanyo says chairwoman Nonaka resigns

Struggling electronics maker Sanyo Electric Co. said its chairwoman, Tomoyo Nonaka, resigned on Monday, ending her career as one of a few top female executives at a major Japanese company. Nonaka's resignation comes as the company faces an investigation by Japan's securities watchdog into possible accounting problems and heads for its third straight annual loss due to heavy restructuring costs and sluggish sales. Before the announcement, the Nikkei business daily reported Nonaka was resigning after her proposals for a thorough internal investigation into Sanyo's accounting irregularities was met with objections from the board of directors. But Sanyo said in a statement Nonaka was resigning for personal reasons. Company spokesman Akihiko Oiwa also said the board had already agreed to conduct an internal probe into the accounting matter, even if some members may have disagreed on details...more...

[American Oyaji]

Maybe they didnt want anyone to find out how much they are skimming.

[GuyJean]

"Daiei Inc. Chairwoman Fumiko Hayashi urges customers to try the firm's new recooked products"

GJ