2009 CWDI Report:
Women Board Directors in Japan’s 100 Largest Companies
The 2009 CWDI Report on Women Board Directors in Japan’s 100 Largest Companies found that women held 1.4% of all board seats.
Key Findings
- Women hold only 17 seats on the Boards of Directors of the top 100 Japanese companies out of a total of 1,198 positions.
- The percentage of women board directors on the top 100 Japanese companies is 1.4%.
- Sixteen different companies have at least one woman on their Board of Directors, an increase over 1998 when only two companies had women on their boards.
- However, the majority of Japan’s board directors remain predominantly male – 84% of Japan’s top 100 companies do not have a single woman on their boards.
- Only one company – Sony – has two women board directors.It is also the only company among the 20 largest that has appointed women to its board.
- Of the 17 board seats held by women, only one is an “inside,” or executive, directorship. The other 16 positions are “outside,” or non-executive directorships.
- Two women – Nobuko Matsubara and Eiko Kono – hold two directorships on two of these top companies.
- Compared to other countries in which studies of women board directors have been conducted, Japan places near the bottom, between Jordan (2%) and Bahrain (1%).
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