Nomura appoints first female CFO

a rare move in Japan, where senior business positions are almost exclusively filled by men.
Junko Nakagawa (45), will commence her new role on April 1, Nomura said in a statement.
“We have not named Ms Nakagawa as CFO because she is a woman but because she has the capacity to do this job and assume the responsibilities,” a spokeswoman for Japan’s largest securities firm by revenue told AFP.
“That said, we think it is good to encourage diversity in our business,” she added.
A graduate of Kobe University, Nakagawa has held several senior positions within Nomura since joining in 1988 and led a number of key projects, most notably Nomura’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2001. Her promotion comes as Nomura has ramped up its expansion overseas as it looks to take on the likes of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs having purchased part of Lehman Brothers following the US bank’s collapse in 2008.
As part of its efforts to transform itself into a global player, Nomura has also appointed Indian-born Jasjit “Jesse” Bhattal as group deputy president and chief executive of the wholesale banking division.
Educated at Oxford University in Britain and the former head of Lehman Brothers in Asia, Bhattal becomes the de facto number three in the group, the highest position ever held by a foreigner in the Japanese firm.
Last year he became president and chief operational officer of Nomura’s global wholesale banking division, the first foreigner to join the firm’s executive committee.
Nomura in February said group net profit rose 31 percent in the quarter ended December, helped by stronger trading gains as rising Tokyo stocks buoyed investor fund inflows. – AFP.