What It’s Like to Be First Woman on a Century-Old Firm’s Board

(Bloomberg) -- Kuniko Urano is the first, yes, the very first woman board member of Japan’s Komatsu Ltd., a 98-year-old company that is the world’s No. 2 construction and mining equipment maker.

The path Urano, 63, took to the boardroom and the reason she’s still a solo member on Komatsu’s board say a great deal about Japan’s difficulties in bridging the gender gap in a country that most acknowledge needs more women in positions of influence.

Worries about Japan’s shrinking workforce and aging demographics have prompted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for years to promote lowering barriers that keep women from contributing fully to the economy. Though he famously outlined goals to create a “Japan in which women shine” and has been pushing for more hiring and promotion for women, Japan has yet to see real results.

While Japanese women’s workforce participation has reached a record, the country continues to grapple with a number of challenges: the female share of board seats is the lowest in the Group of Seven at 5.3%, far below 43% in France and 22% in the U.S., and there’s a wage gap of about 25%, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Japan ranked 121th of 153 countries in the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index, according to a report released Dec. 17.

“Women’s hard work will be the source of the company’s competitiveness,” Urano, who is Komastu’s senior executive officer overseeing human resources and education, said this month in an interview in Tokyo, citing the company’s message.

Urano says that human resources issues such as the “way workers are assigned jobs” matter in terms of developing a pool of women who can rise to be leaders. For instance, Urano is concerned that women not be promoted too quickly, as there could be a high risk of failure.

And she says women in Japan themselves are part of the problem -- they often don’t raise their hands and seek promotion.

“Women should be assigned appropriate work that will enable them to grow step by step rather than giving them difficult jobs that would ruin them,” she said. “I also want to see women themselves change,” saying women shouldn’t quit or “decline managerial positions when offered.”

Urano has taken on a role in its diversity push to attract women to the male-dominated workplace and promote them to be managers. At issue for Japan’s economy is not only a big gender gap, but also a demographic crisis as its working-age population is set to fall 40% by 2055.

Globally, 27% of managers and leaders were women in 2018, and the regional share in Americas and Europe and Central Asia was higher at 39% and 34%, respectively, according to a report from the International Labour Organization. In Japan, the share of women in management positions was 12% last year. Komatsu tracks the trend in Japan with women making up 7.2% of its management ranks in April. The company wants to increase the share to 10% by 2021, when it will mark its 100th anniversary.

Sped Up

Women leaders in Japan say the pace of change is too slow, and needs to be sped up in business and politics.

“I’d like to see more representation of women involved in management and decision-making processes -- also in the field of politics,” Kathy Matsui, vice chair of Goldman Sachs Japan, said at a diversity management seminar in Tokyo on Dec. 16. “The female ratio in leadership groups in Japan is very low,” said Matsui, who is famous for her work on “womenomics.”

Urano, who has been with the company for more than 40 years, wants women to be active when the company launches something new -- like changing its business model or introducing a new system -- because a lack of existing experts represents an opportunity.

Komatsu holds female-only training sessions several times a year for dozens of workers in their 30s to early 40s. In such meetings, led by Urano and outside experts, the group discusses their career plans, which are reviewed by their managers. The sessions are also a place to learn how some of the company’s more senior women -- including those with children -- have figured out ways to juggle work and home life.

Personal History

In the late 1970s, when Urano was looking for a job, female office workers served tea or spent their day making copies even if they were highly educated. At a job fair held by Komatsu, Urano and other women were told “we don’t expect much from women with bachelor’s degrees”.

Yet she persevered, joining Komatsu in 1979 and has filled positions in a variety of areas including HR, European export operations and logistics. She said she was fortunate to have bosses who supported her and enabled her to grow, including the two men who ended up heading Komatsu, Kunio Noji and Tetsuji Ohashi.

She acknowledges plenty of struggles. One was around 2000 when she was general manager of the Osaka plant and Komatsu faced a crisis, reporting its first-ever operating loss. The company implemented a new structure and Urano led a reform at the plant and had to do everything at the plant from shedding redundant stockpiles to finding a shipper that offered the lowest prices.

She says she was surprised when she was promoted to be an executive officer in 2011. She says one of the reasons she’s done well at Komatsu is she’s stuck with it, and was willing to do a variety of jobs. She says many female colleagues left the company, some who were more capable than her but ended up being unutilized.

Even now, there are still many women who are struggling in the male-dominated workplace and “telling their situations is my job,” she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Masumi Suga in Tokyo at msuga@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Phoebe Sedgman at psedgman2@bloomberg.net, Jodi Schneider

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