JPMorgan Asset Management Japan has appointed Kaguya Komatsu as president, the first time for a woman to get the job, a bright spot as the nation moves slowly to fix a stubborn gender gap in management positions and wages.
Komatsu, who was a managing director, will become president effective March 1, JPMorgan AM said Monday in a news release. The current president, Shoichi Okoshi, will become chairman.
Komatsu joined the firm in 2011, and has been in charge of the institutional investor and investment trust businesses since 2024. Before joining JPMorgan, she worked at Fitch Ratings Japan, Merrill Lynch Japan Securities, Deutsche Securities and the Financial Services Agency.
Japan has lagged far behind other advanced economies on lists of female representation in positions of authority, and ranks 118th among 146 nations in the World Economic Forum's gender equity rankings.
In the corporate sector, only 4% of Nikkei 225 companies had women in C-suite jobs like chief executive officer and chief financial officer, compared with more than 30% for major stock indexes in Europe and the US, according to a report by Bloomberg Intelligence strategists Yasutake Homma and Adeline Diab.
Women on average earn 79% of men's salaries in Japan, the largest gender wage gap among advanced economies, according to the report.
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