It seems incredible that it has taken until 2016 and pressure from a Prime Minister for a Japanese bank to finally appoint women to executive positions.
Japan’s largest bank by assets, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial group (MUFG) had stood alone as one of the final holdouts against Prime Minister Abe’s thrust to promote more women to positions of responsibility. Up until this week it had maintained an all-male structure of around 90 executive officers.
No Japanese Women
Financial publication the Wall Street Journal reported that MUFG has recently relented and had appointed two women as executive officers in its banking unit.
The positions though were not in Japan but in Hong Kong and the U.S.A., meaning that MUFG still does not have Japanese women in its top positions.
Over 30 Years Service
The two women promoted are Suk Fun Ngan, co-general manager of the Hong Kong branch, and the San Francisco-based head of transaction banking for MUFG's American business Ranjana Clark.
Ngan has served at the bank for more than 30 years, while Clark joined California-based Union Bank, an MUFG subsidiary, in 2013. Before joining the Japanese bank, Clark held executive posts at PayPal and Western Union Co.
