Women in Leadership in Japan 2026
A client asked me recently why none of the candidates in their Japan leadership search were women. It's a fair question, and I get asked some version of it on most Country Manager searches now. So I pulled together the public data and our own count of who has actually been appointed to run Japan for global tech companies over the past 15 months.
The short answer is that Japan is a hard market to meet a diversity goal for a senior leadership hire. The pool of women with the right experience is small, and it gets smaller the more senior and the larger the company. That doesn't mean it can't be done. We placed Rumi Oku as Area Vice President, Japan at Fastly this year. But you need to know where to look, and you need to set expectations with your stakeholders early.
All the data below is public and linked at the end, so you can use it in your own internal conversations. We will update this post every year, using the same method, so the numbers can be compared year on year.
For the detailed research behind this post, explore our Japan Head Appointments Register, with appointment records and links to the original sources. For the market these leaders are hired into, read our Japan market brief.
The national numbers
Women make up 28.6% of regular employees in Japan, and 9.2% of department heads. That's from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's latest equal employment survey, which covers companies with 10 or more staff. At the very top of listed companies, women hold 3.9% of internal board seats.
Women at each level in Japan
Share of each level held by women
Japan ranked 118th of 148 countries in the World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, the lowest in the G7. The number I'd watch is the drop from section manager to department head, because that's the layer a Japan Country Manager usually comes from.
The bigger the company, the fewer women at the top
The national averages are held up by small businesses, many of them family owned. At companies with 5,000 or more employees, women are 4.8% of department heads and 6.6% of company officers. At companies with 10 to 29 employees, it's 16.7% and 26.9%.
Women in senior roles by company size
Share held by women, by number of employees
This matters for us because the people who run a global vendor's Japan business almost always come out of large companies, either a big Japanese enterprise or the Japan arm of a large global vendor.
Listed company boards show the same thing. At Prime-listed companies, women hold 36.5% of outside director seats but only 3.9% of internal ones. The outside number has moved because of governance pressure from the exchange and investors. The internal number reflects who actually runs the business.
Across all Japanese companies, Teikoku Databank found women were 8.6% of company presidents as of October 2025. That's a record high, and still under one in ten.
The tech pipeline is thin too
In tech specifically, the pipeline is thin from the start. Women are 18.8% of IT engineers in Japan, against an OECD average of 20.6%. They are 9.8% of IT graduates and 18.5% of STEM graduates, and on both of those Japan ranks last of the 38 OECD countries.
A Country Manager for a software company usually comes up through enterprise sales leadership at a large vendor, and that is the part of the market where the numbers above are lowest.
Who got the top job in Japan over the past 15 months
We counted every public announcement we could find of a new head of Japan at a global enterprise technology company, from July 2025 to September 2026. That's 63 appointments across software, cloud, security, data, infrastructure and IT services. Six of them were women.
New heads of Japan at global tech companies
Appointments by quarter announced, 1 July 2025 to 21 September 2026
| Company | Leader | Title | Announced | Previously |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infor | Yuka Kanemitsu | President and Representative Director | Aug 2026 | 25+ years in enterprise IT leadership |
| Fastly | Rumi Oku | Area Vice President, Japan | Jun 2026 | Google Cloud Japan; HashiCorp Japan |
| Filigran | Maya Toda | Country Manager, Japan | Apr 2026 | Country Manager, Sysdig; Sales Director, CrowdStrike |
| Dragos | Kaori Nieda | Country Manager, Japan | Apr 2026 | Country Manager, Amplitude Japan |
| Cloudflare | Sayoko Matsumoto | Regional VP and Japan Representative | Oct 2025 | 20+ years in technology and cloud |
| Google Cloud | Tomoko Mikami | Head of Google Cloud Japan | Sep 2025 | Microsoft Japan, 20 years |
That's about 8%, a little under the share of women among all company presidents in Japan. The window is short and the list will have gaps, but women were one or two appointments at most in any quarter, and none at all from January to March 2026.
What we see in our own searches
Our own numbers tell the same story. We have run seven Country Manager searches for global tech companies in Japan this year. Across all of them, two women reached a conversation with the client, and one of those was an informal first meeting. One of the two was placed.
Where the exceptions come from
The women who do get these roles tend to come from a small number of companies that have put women into senior roles for years. Microsoft is the clearest example in Japan.
Miki Tsusaka has been President of Microsoft Japan since February 2023, and is also co-president of Microsoft Asia. She came from BCG, where she was a Senior Partner and Managing Director.
Microsoft Japan's executive team includes Toshie Ninomiya (Customer Success), Hiromi Oka (Enterprise Partner) and Keiko Noda (Chief Learning Officer).
Tomoko Mikami spent 20 years at Microsoft Japan before Google made her head of Google Cloud Japan in October 2025.
Google Cloud is now in the same position. It is run in Japan by a woman, and Rumi Oku came out of Google Cloud Japan when we placed her at Fastly.
IBM is another. Miho Miura (三浦美穂) has been President and Representative Director of Red Hat Japan since July 2023. Before that she was a Senior Managing Executive Officer (専務執行役員, senmu shikkō yakuin) at IBM Japan, running its partner alliance and digital sales business. Kuniko Ogawa has run Equinix Japan as President and Representative Director since 2020. She spent more than 20 years at IBM Japan, rising to Vice President of Strategic Outsourcing Delivery, and was then Executive Officer and Global CTO at Macromill before joining Equinix.
The other source is women with a track record of leading a business in Japan or the wider region. Kaori Nieda moved from Country Manager at Amplitude to the same role at Dragos, while Denise Miura built APAC businesses for CRM and database vendors before taking on further leadership roles across the region and in Japan. Meanwhile, with roots in Microsoft, Yuki Shibuya now leads NetSuite in Japan, following a key regional role at Domo.
This isn't a complete list. We've picked a few examples to show where these women tend to come from as they entered the leadership ranks.
If your Japan hire has a diversity goal
Here is what I'd suggest, based on what has worked for us.
Set expectations with HQ at the start. A balanced shortlist for a Country Manager role in Japan is not a given, and it's better that your stakeholders hear that with the data in front of them before the search, not at the finalist stage.
Build the target list around the companies that have a track record of women in leadership in Japan. Microsoft, Google Cloud and IBM are the obvious ones, and there are others at the next level down.
Look one level below the Country Manager seat. Many of the strongest women are running a large segment, a partner business or a customer success organisation at a big vendor, and are ready for their first Japan-wide role.
Keep women who have already run a Japan business on your radar, even if they have only just moved. They get approached for every new role, so the relationship has to be there before the search starts.
Don't lower the bar. The candidates we have placed got the job because they were the best person for it, and that's what makes them credible with the team and the customers once they start.
None of this guarantees a woman on the shortlist for every search. It does make it much more likely.
How we put this together
The national figures are taken from the original government and industry reports, read in Japanese where that is the original. The appointment count comes from company press releases, PR TIMES, the weekly personnel column in BCN, EnterpriseZine and English-language newswires, covering 1 July 2025 to 21 September 2026.
We counted announcements of a new head of Japan (President, Country Manager, General Manager or Area VP for Japan) at non-Japanese enterprise technology companies. We left out consumer hardware, video surveillance, telecom equipment and automotive. Where an appointment was announced in one quarter and took effect in another, we used the announcement date. Some announcements will have been missed, so treat the totals as a close count, not a census. Four of the five women are confirmed by she/her wording in the release. Japanese releases rarely use pronouns, so for most of the men we have gone by name.
The research and first draft were produced with AI tools under my direction. Every figure links back to its original source, and I'm accountable for what's here. If you spot errors, please let me know and I will fix it. Also, if you see an appointment we missed, let me know and I'll add it.
All 63 appointments, July 2025 to September 2026
| Announced | Company | Leader | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-15 | Acronis | Hisao Toyama | General Manager, Japan |
| 2026-09-09 | Smartsheet | Takeshi Osawa | President and GM, Japan |
| 2026-09-01 | Splashtop | Kotaro Shinra (新良幸太郎) | Representative Director and GM |
| 2026-09-01 | EPLAN | Yasuhiro Hoshino (星野泰宏) | Representative Director |
| 2026-08-24 | Syncron | Yusuke Sasano | Head of Japan |
| 2026-08-17 | Dell Technologies | Jon Robottom | President |
| 2026-08-06 | Infor | Yuka Kanemitsu | President and Representative Director |
| 2026-08-04 | Notion | Tomo Aoki | General Manager, Japan |
| 2026-08-04 | Doppel | Hideki Ushigome | Country Manager |
| 2026-07-29 | OutSystems | Chikara Teshima | Chairman and CEO, Japan |
| 2026-07-28 | IBM | Masaki Murata | President |
| 2026-07-23 | Scaled Agile | Hiroaki Nakaya | President |
| 2026-07-15 | SonicWall | Tony Taniguchi (谷口忠彦) | President |
| 2026-07-01 | DataRobot | Osamu Takizawa | Country Manager |
| 2026-06-24 | Glean | Shoji Ozawa | Country Manager |
| 2026-06-16 | Qlik | Yoshihiro Konno | President |
| 2026-06-15 | Strategy | Takeshi Koga (古賀剛) | Country Manager |
| 2026-06-11 | Dropbox | Yoichi Ryomura (龍村洋一) | President, Japan business |
| 2026-06-08 | Docusign | Hiroki Yoshida | Country Manager |
| 2026-06-04 | SentinelOne | Takuya Kutsuwada | Vice President, Japan |
| 2026-06-01 | Fastly | Rumi Oku | Area Vice President, Japan |
| 2026-06-01 | o9 Solutions | Hideki Shiozuka | Country Manager |
| 2026-05-01 | Nutanix | Hiroshi Imai | President |
| 2026-04-29 | ByteBridge | Seiji Sugiura | Country Manager |
| 2026-04-14 | Filigran | Maya Toda | Country Manager, Japan |
| 2026-04-09 | Cognition AI | Takumi Masai | President and GM |
| 2026-04-01 | Dragos | Kaori Nieda | Country Manager |
| 2026-04-01 | HubSpot | Hiroya Isa (伊佐裕也) | Country Manager |
| 2026-04-01 | New Relic | Masakiyo Furudate | GVP, Head of Japan |
| 2026-03-30 | Forescout | Tsuyoshi Kitagawa | Regional Director and Country Manager |
| 2026-03-23 | Content Guru | Masakatsu Yoneda | Country Manager |
| 2026-03-11 | Mattermost | Shigeru Harasawa | Country Manager |
| 2026-03-04 | SAP | Yoshiro Horikawa (堀川嘉朗) | President |
| 2026-03-03 | Amplitude | Kazuki Hirose | President |
| 2026-02-02 | ClickHouse | Takeshi Kaneko | President |
| 2026-01-15 | Zuora | Shigeki Iwagami | President |
| 2026-01-14 | Cohesity | Yoshiyuki Tanaka | President |
| 2026-01-05 | Splunk | Junichiro Uchiyama | President |
| 2026-01-05 | Persefoni | Takehiro Endo | Country Manager |
| 2025-12-17 | Absolute Software | Yasuki Aragaki (新垣康紀) | President |
| 2025-12-10 | IQGeo | Kinji Ohno (大野欽司) | Country Manager |
| 2025-12 | NAVEX | Nick Mitsuya (三ツ谷直晃) | Country Manager |
| 2025-12-01 | Proofpoint | Ken Nomura (野村健) | VP Japan and Representative Director |
| 2025-11-20 | Nerdio | Tatsuro Sugiyama (杉山達朗) | Country Manager |
| 2025-11-13 | Kyndryl | Yoshinori Irisawa (入澤由典) | President (from Apr 2026) |
| 2025-11-13 | proteanTecs | Noritaka Kojima (小嶋範孝) | GM and Country Manager |
| 2025-11-11 | Infoblox | Kazunori Dobashi (土橋一範) | Country Manager |
| 2025-11-06 | Accenture | Dai Hamaoka (濱岡大) | President |
| 2025-10-24 | Cloudflare | Sayoko Matsumoto | Regional VP and Japan Representative |
| 2025-10-10 | KELA | Yuji Hirokawa (廣川裕司) | President and COO |
| 2025-10-08 | WalkMe | Ryo Noda (野田亮) | Country Manager |
| 2025-10-06 | Rapid7 | Toshiyuki Matsuda (松田敏幸) | President |
| 2025-10-02 | Western Digital | Hisashi Takano (高野公史) | Japan Country Officer |
| 2025-09-11 | Mapbox | Yoshikazu Hata (畑義和) | Country Manager |
| 2025-09-09 | Deel | Ryo Nishiura (西浦亮) | President and Country Manager |
| 2025-09-05 | SailPoint | Toru Fukushima (福島徹) | Head of Japan |
| 2025-09-04 | Google Cloud | Tomoko Mikami | Head of Google Cloud Japan |
| 2025-08-07 | Anthropic | Hidetoshi Tojo | President |
| 2025-08-04 | Penguin Solutions | Sanshiro Masada (正田三四郎) | President |
| 2025-07-25 | Elastic | Ken Otani (大谷健) | President |
| 2025-07-24 | Shopify | Michio Baba | Country Manager |
| 2025-07-11 | Zendesk | Taro Mori (森太郎) | President |
| 2025-07-01 | SUSE | Gen Watanabe (渡辺元) | Country Manager |
Rows shaded are women. This list was compiled using AI and will be updated periodically if annoucements were missed.
For the detailed research behind this post, explore our Japan Head Appointments Register, with appointment records and links to the original sources. For the market these leaders are hired into, read our Japan market brief.
Sources
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 令和7年度雇用均等基本調査, company survey summary (FY2025). Figures 1 and 8.
Keidanren, 上場企業役員ジェンダー・バランスに関する経団連会員企業調査結果 2025. Prime market figures as of 1 July 2025.
Teikoku Databank, 女性社長比率調査 2025. As of October 2025.
World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2025.
Human Resocia, IT gender gap study 2025, citing OECD and ILO data.
Microsoft Japan, executive team.
Appointment announcements: each is linked in the full list above.
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