The former stewardess who becomes president. An absolute first for the company in a country, Japan, where women at the top of large companies are a rarity. Mitsuko Tottori has climbed every ladder since she began her career as a flight attendant in 1985 for Japan Air System, an airline that later merged with Japan Airlines, which Tottori will manage from April. The promotion arrived in mid-January: to the top step. She is the first woman to hold this role. “There are working women out there who are struggling with their career advancement. I hope that my appointment as president can encourage them to take the next steps”, she said while presenting herself to the press in Tokyo.
Pressure to increase gender diversity
Tottori’s appointment comes as Japanese companies face growing pressure to increase gender diversity especially in top positions and fix a pay gap between men and women that is the worst among G7 countries, almost double the average for the OECD group of advanced economies. Despite some improvements, few large companies have women in leadership positions. According to a 2021 survey, women held 13.2% of management positions in Japan, the lowest percentage among OECD countries. Japan Airlines has set itself the goal of reaching 30% of female executives by March 2026.
Tottori has promised to make safety the number one priority at the helm of the Japanese company. On January 2, a Japan Airlines plane collided with a Japanese Coast Guard aircraft at Tokyo’s Haneda airport: all 379 people on board the JAL flight made it out alive, thanks to the calm of the cabin attendants and passengers. Five deaths, however, on board the Coast Guard aircraft. And Tottori began his career just four months before the airline’s worst disaster: it was April 1985 and over 500 people were killed. “I know well what happened then, which is why I want to pass on the fundamental concept of safety to future generations.”
The story of Tottori
Fifty-nine years old, Tottori previously served as senior manager of the company’s security department and then as vice president. «After joining the company, Tottori acquired a high level of knowledge and experience in the field. Since 2020, you have demonstrated exceptional leadership as senior vice president of the Cabin Attendants division in balancing human resources development and employee motivation in the challenging management environment of the pandemic. Since 2023, you have contributed to improving the quality of services offered to customers as senior vice president of the Customer Experience Division, helping to maintain and improve the quality of our services”, reads the official motivation of Japan Airlines.
In the April-September half-year, Japan Airlines recorded its highest revenue since going public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2012. But uncertainties remain. Passenger numbers on international flights remain around 70% of pre-Covid levels.
«Her case shows that a woman who started her career from the lowest position can become the head of the company. It’s a great model for women’s career development in Japanese companies,” Kumiko Nemoto, a management professor at Senshu University in Tokyo, told Reuters. and author of an essay on gender inequality entitled “Too few women at the top: the persistence of inequality in Japan” (published by Cornell University Press). Of 1,836 companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s “prime” market, only 15 companies, or less than 1%, are led by women, according to a January 2023 study by Kyodo and Teikoku Databank.
The growing role of women
As the Japanese workforce ages and shrinks, women have returned to playing an increasing role. In 2022, the female employment rate between 25 and 39 years old exceeded 80%: a record. «At the basis of this phenomenon there is a change in cultural attitudes towards women and work. As talent has become scarcer, working women are more valued,” she writes The Economist. Japanese women’s high levels of education make them well positioned to benefit from this shift: 53% of women go to university in Japan, compared to 59% of men. «Women are Japan’s hidden resource», says Mori Masako, former minister for gender equality, to the British weekly. But antiquated family laws still pose a barrier to career advancement.
“Japanese tax and welfare policies discourage married women from working. When dependent spouses earn less than 1.3 million yen (8,200 euros) per year, they are not required to pay contributions to public social security and health insurance programs”, continues theEconomist. “A government report published in October showed that more than 1.1 million working women limit their working hours and earnings to stay below this threshold.”