The goal of the annual “Developing the Next Generation Leaders in Finance” event is to discuss issues in human resource development across companies and generations, and specifically to drive the development of women and diverse talent in the financial industry.
This event took place in mid-October 2024, organized by the 30% Club Japan Investor Group and supported by the Association for Women in Finance and the Asset Management Women’s Forum. Recruit Holdings Director, Executive Vice President and COO Ayano “Sena” Senaha took the stage as a representative of the next generation of business leaders.
The Organization’s Role: Support People Taking The Leap to Fully Realize Their Own Potential
Sena gave the keynote speech to kick off the event. Drawing from her own career experiences, she shared insights into what it takes to become a manager or executive, and discussed what she has gained along the way.
Sena introduced her London assignment as a pivotal moment in her career. Then in her twenties, she discovered a position as an assistant to the CEO of a newly acquired British subsidiary of Recruit Group through an internal recruitment system and applied for it. Although she did not meet the application requirements, Sena was hired for the job because of her past achievements and enthusiasm. She went on to describe how this happened, and how — despite a lot of trial and error — she ended up driving a significant improvement in the subsidiary’s performance.
Based on this experience, Sena highlighted the importance of thinking out of the box and passionately pursuing one’s own interests while seizing opportunities along the way. It is precisely because these are self-decided choices that one can persevere even in tough times. “Moreover, when you are not a big somebody, you don’t have much to lose,” she insisted. “Even if you fail, it’s not that bad.” She also emphasized the role that organizations should play, saying: “As I’ve done in my own career, I think it’s essential to help as many people as possible to take their own ‘leaps’ to fully realize their potential.”
Sena making a point during the panel discussion
Identifying the Right Drivers for the Organization’s Situation Is the Key to Achieving Results
During the panel discussion that followed, Sena spoke about promoting the advancement of women, discussing the issues and strategies for developing the next generation of leaders.
She started off by introducing Recruit Group’s gender parity targets. “When our president changed in 2021 and a new management structure was put in place, we set five sustainability goals. Two are related to gender parity. First, we aim to achieve gender parity among senior executives, those in managerial positions, and total employees by FY2030. We set this target for all job levels, since we felt it was not essential to set targets of 30% or 40% when there are already equal numbers of men and women on the planet. Looking at all our employees, we’re already almost at 50%. Our biggest achievement so far is that our percentage of female senior managers, which was initially around 10%, has now grown to 27%.
“Another goal is to achieve gender parity among the members of our Board of Directors and Audit & Supervisory Board by FY2030,” she continued. “The percentage of women board members is now 33%. Since the target for both is 50%, we still have a long way to go.
Next, Sena introduced Indeed’s Inclusive Interviewing Rules (IIR) as one of the measures that had been most effective. The IIR are guidelines for starting the screening process after ensuring diversity among candidates at the time of hiring.
She explained the background to introducing the IIR: “In countries where the average length of employment is relatively short, increasing the percentage of women at the point of hire, rather than promotion, is the most powerful driver.” At the same time, Sena added, “What you consider to be a driver depends on the company’s situation, and the importance of choosing measures that match it.”
Another measure that had a positive effect, Sena said, was to clarify the requirements for managerial positions at Recruit in Japan. She offered some background on this policy.
“For sales staff, for example, things like being able to respond to customer inquiries and issues at any time, day or night, and being able to relocate to different regions were implicit prerequisites for becoming a manager,” she noted. “You might find it hard to believe, but that was how things once worked. We just accepted it as the norm. It’s essential to acknowledge the past but accept that things are different now. We’ve tried to unlearn this as an organization without making anyone out to be a villain.”
Sena then introduced another pertinent fact: For the departments that applied the new methodology experimentally, the number of women candidates for management positions has risen by 1.7 times as a result of clearly stating the requirements for management positions. She added: “The number of men has also increased, by 1.4 times. It’s easy to think of this as a binary opposition, so I was really happy to prove with numbers that this is not the case. This is not just an investment in women; it’s an investment in diversity.”
During the Q&A session, one of the audience members asked how to get people who are not interested in women’s empowerment or the development of the next generation involved.
Sena replied: “In addition to having measures for the people directly involved, it may be a good idea to establish measures for each target group.”
She then provided a specific example. “We have a training program called Career Cafe to support the career development of women employees in their late 20s and 30s. We’ve also established one called Career Cafe for BOSS for managers, since we believe that changing the way managers think is vital. This training is designed to help managers recognize their unconscious biases, learn the key points of human resource management that make the most of diversity, and update their management skills. It’s based on the idea that managers need to understand the individuality and values of each person from a diverse range of perspectives rather than just relying on their own past successes or uniform thinking.”
Toward the end of the event, Sena pointed out that the theme of promoting the advancement of women has been discussed for many years. She challenged the audience, saying: “Our generation must address this long-debated theme. Everyone is aware of the issue, but we’ve been talking about it for decades without making any progress. I think this is worse than not talking about it at all.” She then emphasized the need for broad-based information exchanges across industries, and for society as a whole to address this issue.
Ayano Senaha
Director, Executive Vice President and COO Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.
Ayano "Sena" Senaha is director and executive vice president in charge of human resources and the General Affairs Division, Finance Division, Risk Management Division, Group Governance and Sustainability Transformation in the Corporate Planning Division as well as its COO. She has played a major role in the rapid globalization of the company, leading and contributing to a series of post-merger integrations. Six years after joining the company, she was transferred to the newly acquired firm Advantage Group Limited in London in 2012. She skillfully turned around its financial performance after being appointed managing director in 2014. She became chief of staff at Indeed, senior vice president in 2018, and director in 2020. Sena is credited with spurring the development of a corporate governance structure that neutralizes risks while enabling quick decision-making.