30% CLUB JAPAN INVESTOR GROUP INTERVIEW SERIES VOL5Interview with Emiko Higashi: a Japanese and global perspective on the boardroom
Oasis Hi Emiko. You have had anillustrious career with extensive experience
in investment banking, M&A and corporate
strategy. From Japan to Silicon Valley, youhave served as a leading advisor,
managing director, entrepreneur, and board
director. Today, you sit on the boards ofprestigious Japanese and Americancompanies, including listed pharmaceuticalgroup Takeda Pharmaceutical and Sanken
Electric, a semiconductor company. Can
you please share with us about yourbackground and career history, and any
turning points on your professional journey?
Higashi I will focus on three highlights orturning points that probably best reflect who
I am. At the end of college, I was not afinance major, economics major, or
anything related to business. I always
wanted to become an anthropologist. In my
fourth year in college, I went to my parents
and told them that I wanted to go tograduate school. My father proceeded tosay, “Then you're going on your own.” Thatreally prompted me to look for a job, which I
had not thought that I would have to do.
Luckily, I somehow got hired by McKinsey
ultimately, and that really opened my eyes
wide on things I had no clue that existed,called “business”. And it got me trained very
quickly, it made me aware of things that I
did not know. Forever, I am grateful for myfather kicking me down the hill, so to speak.
The second turning point was at McKinsey.
Post-exploration phase, I told my boss at
McKinsey -- the face of McKinsey in Tokyo
and Asia back then -- that I was going tobusiness school after two years of being ananalyst. He was furious, because from his
perspective, his return on investment on an
analyst had not been paid. He was proud to
not have any MBAs in his consultancy
group back then, and he thought he could
train anybody on his own. And here I was
saying I was going to business school. So,
my then-boss said, furious, that “I will makesure that you will never be able to comeback to Japan and work for a Japanesecompany. I will tell everybody that you will
not be able to.” At the time, it was upsetting.
But then I thought to myself: If that is thecase, I will have to work outside of Japan. It
filled me with this additional energy or
objective that Japan is not my territory. So, I
thank him for being so bold and telling methat in some way, because it encouraged
me to think outside of the box of Japan. The
third highlight was when I was at
Wasserstein Perella, a boutique investmentbank. When the M&A market in the early
1990s went down, here we were, a bunch
of VPs, directors and managing directors,

all sitting around the table and wondering,“What do we do? The M&A market isdown.” So one day, Bruce Wassersteincalled me into his office – I was just a veryjunior VP – and he said, “Emiko, you areJapanese, and you are going to be incharge of the technology industry.” And I
almost fell off the chair because, first, yes, I
am Japanese -- but I used to skip all thetechnology related articles, businessmagazines and newspapers! This was thedays of PCs and semiconductors; theinternet was invented but has not evenbeen commercialized yet. His logic was:because you are Japanese, you must know
something about technology. But his logic
was also: here is a junior woman. If she
does not swim in this bigger ocean he wasthrowing me into, there is not much loss forthe firm if she does not succeed. I was nota senior person, so there was no loss forthe firm, and I would be shown the door. I
had no choice but to say yes in the down
market. But I am so glad I did! This is oneof the stories where people were asked to
do something that nobody wanted to do,
and back then, at Wasserstein Perella,
nobody wanted to be in charge of thetechnology industry, because nobody
understood it. It was one of those situations
where you did something that nobody
wanted to do, and that made your path.
That was definitely my case when Bruce
asked me that question.
Oasis That is fascinating! You describe
several challenges you have encounteredon your path. Can you tell us a bit more
about moving to an executive role? Whatdo you believe enabled you to reach yourlevel of success, given the gender gap,
especially among leadership?
Higashi I think that it has a lot to do with
who I am. First, in any organization, youhave to really figure out what the rules of
the game are, how success is defined, what
the company is truly trying to achieve, andhow you can contribute to that success, andtherefore, what you have to do to be
successful in that organization. I spent
many years in investment banking in M&A.
There were very few women back then,especially in senior positions. Maybe this is
still somewhat true today, but hopefully lessso. Some of my female colleagues dropped
out in the process, and I reflect back now
on what was happening. I am not saying
this is what I advocate for today, but I solely
focused on delivering that success as it was
defined. In the case of investment banking,whether you like or not, if you are arainmaker, if you do deals for clients

Emiko Higashi
Tomon Partners, Managing
Director
Started her career at Mobil andspent two years as a consultant at
McKinsey & Co. in Tokyo. She
spent 15 years in investmentbanking, finishing as a managing
director in charge of the global
technology M&A practice at Merrill
Lynch & Co. She co-founded Gilo
Ventures, a venture capital basedin Silicon Valley and Israel, in
2000, and founded Tomon
Partners, a strategy and M&A
consulting firm, in 2003. During
her investment banking career,
she has worked on numerous ech
M&A transactions for client suchas Cisco, DSP Communications,
Hyundai Electronics (Hynix), IBM,KLA-Tencor and Xerox. She wasone of three women among 300
managing directors at Merrill
Lynch. Emiko grew up in Japanand received a B.A. fromInternational Christian University
in Tokyo and an MBA from
Harvard University. She hasserved on the boards of Stentor
Inc., Zen Research and BUILD, a
non-profit serving at-risk highschool students. She currently
serves on the board of KLA(NASDAQ), Rambus (NYSE),
Takeda Pharmaceutical (TSE &NYSE),SankenElectric
successfully
andandearn
fees
for the firm, that(TSE).

is defined as success. It’s as simple as that.
There are all kinds of politics. Men go todrinks, go out to play golf, etc. People
complained because men had all thesesocial ties that made them seem morefriendly. All of that is true, but there is one
thing that is not going to change. I was told
by a male boss back then in my investmentbanking group, “Emiko, if you produce,
nobody can complain.” If you are arainmaker, nobody can say anything. So I
focused on that, and I delivered. Many
people complain about things that are not
relevant to success in the company,
whether it’s about gender or somethingelse. That takes away their energy, andalso makes others look at them as notreally focused on what it takes to be
successful. Even really good, talented
people sometimes sort of derail,
surrounded by such unhappiness. I would
say that, for example, in investmentbanking, if you don’t like the culture of
producing revenues being the mostimportant thing, then get out of there! It is
not your place. Having said that, I am well

aware that there are other important things,
and if I were the head of an investmentbank today, I would not say, “Hey, justfocus on revenue production no matter
what, and don’t think about anything else.”
ESG, a corporate’s purpose, andstakeholder value are absolutely important
today. But if the company is not producing
profitability, all the other things satisfied are
not sufficient either. My belief is that applies
to individuals and organizations: know
what’s really important and how success isdefined.
Oasis You are a role model. Who havebeen your role models, if any? How havethese role models helped you in your career
path?
Higashi I prefer mentor rather than rolemodel. When I was in investment banking,there was only one woman that I canremember who was senior to me, wholooked at me as another woman she
probably needed to mentor. I think she didthat for men and women. She is still myfriend. It was hugely important that she wasjust there. She was a managing director,
and I was director or VP, and she had asixth grade son at the time. She brought her
son to her office to do his homework while
she was working. I remember seeing that in
my peripheral vision -- and nobody madeanything out of it -- but I think it was that
demonstration of, “Hey, if your children
need to be in your office, you just bringthem, as long as you are effective andefficient, it is okay.” And this is back in early
1990s! If anyone was a role model in mymind, I think she was that role model. I
have been fortunate to have had a few
great mentors. When I was in investmentbanking, Joseph Perella was one, and heremains a mentor and a dear friend. My
partner, Davidi Gilo, who had a venture
capital business, is another one. He was
my partner and boss, and watching him in a
venture capital investment business wasvery informative and I learned a lot fromhim. Another person was almost my peer,
just slightly above my tenure, but not somuch. He was a person of colour and agreat peer. When I was really having a hardtime, he lifted me up. So I think these are allimportant people.
Oasis My next question relates tosomething that women often have to deal
with, that may impact their ability to move
up in the organization. Do you have any
advice regarding work-life balance? Or if I
put it a little differently, how do you develop
yourself outside of your working
environment?
Higashi I would say one thing, especiallyto really capable women and men: Don’t
strive to be perfect in things that you do.
But especially if you are a parent of young

children or teenagers, until your children go
to college, I think the 80/20 rule isimportant, and knowing what your 20 is 20% of the things that have 80% impact.
Just know how you balance that. I see
many people get burnt out and break down,because they try to do a perfect job of
everything they do, whether at home,family, work, anything… and you justcannot do it all. That 80/20 might change
daily, monthly, yearly. But constantly being
able to calibrate that and say: Hey, it’sokay. The other 20% part that I didn’t dotoday? Nobody died. Nobody suffered,really, in the long-term. It’s okay if thedinner was delivery pizza. It’s okay. So
don’t try to be a perfectionist in everything
you do. I think that is important. I learned
that by just stumbling in and realizing, “Oh, I
can’t do everything”. I try to remember thattime period, I mean those 15 years of time
when your child is little, until they go to highschool or college. You really have family
and work obligations, and that’s about it.
You don’t really have the extra time to readbooks or do some other things. To me,
community, and being involved with outside
non-profit organisations, outside of work,
especially with the social issues
surrounding us today, all have an impact onwork as well. Young people at work now
are thinking more about their values anddemanding that sort of blend. It is importantfor somebody of my age or in my capacity
and role to really understand what ishappening out there, too. And it’s importantto have a personal experience, not justreading in the paper, but touching thatsocial issue. Whether you are reallyengaged in your community every Sunday,
or you are on board of a non-profit, or
whatever that might be. That is very
important.
Oasis Can you share a bit about what atypical day is like for you, especially in yourrole as a board director, on a day-to-day
basis? What does it look like?
Higashi Board meetings usually happen
quarterly. At some Japanese companies,
it’s more often than that, to the extreme of
12 times a year. But I think even Japanesecompanies are making board meetings lessfrequent, especially as more external
directors and independent directors are
becoming part of the board composition,
which has traditionally or historically not
been the case. If you seriously want to be
an independent board member, it takes 30,
or in some cases, 40 days a year ofcommitment. It’s not like every day is thesame thing. On average, at a minimum, you
go to board meetings, committee meetings.
You prepare for those meetings byreviewing the material that the company
has sent you in advance. But that’s theminimum. There are a couple of otherthings I do. One is to continue to self-

educate by participating in industry expert
events, seminars, and small discussion
groups, held by law firms, accounting firms,
universities and others. You get a lot out of
those: self-education on specific topics, like
corporate governance, ESG, climatechange, perspective from the board, etc.
There are also peer exchanges. I haveformal and informal peer exchanges withother board members. We ended up
forming a very informal, closed forum that
we hold once a quarter where we exchange
our challenges and issues that we faced in
the boardroom. It’s a great support andeducation group. And I also spend a lot oftime with CEOs and employees of thecompanies that I am on the board of. CEOs
basically call me to talk about specifictopics, like hiring certain key talent, or
getting my feedback about strategy. In
some cases, companies, especiallyJapanese companies that are trying to be
global, ask me to come and talk to
employees about different topics. In Japan,
I often get asked to talk about my career,
how to keep developing your talent, etc.
There are a lot of different things that
employees could learn from thoseexamples that I can share with them. And I
also engage with other board members,
informally, between the board meetings,
about different topics and agendas thatcome up, that I see as potential
opportunities or issues. I also get asked toengage with investors, in one-on-one
meetings with institutional investors, at therequest of the company. One of the things
that I haven’t done is to talk with thecustomers of the companies. When I think
about all the stakeholders -- shareholders,
employees -- I have done a lot, but not withcustomers, interestingly.
Oasis I will now move to Womenomics.
When Prime Minister Shinzo Abeannounced this policy, the goal was to help
women enter the workforce. Since then, theshare of women in their prime working
years with a job in Japan has increased,from 73.6% to 77.5%. That means roughly
2 million new women in the workforce. Yet
even if there has been improvement for theoverall workforce, the representation of
women on boards and in corporate
management still remains low in Japan.
Can you share with us if you have seen any
changes since the advent of Womenomics?
What still needs to be improved?
Higashi The statistics that you cited -- I
see it. I think there are more women who
appear to be in the workforce. Yet for any
company that you talk to, there is a lack ofprogress, or a lack of candidates at thehigher management level, and that seems
to be a perpetual issue. I have actually
talked about this with one of the companies
I am on the board of in Japan. This is notjust a women’s issue. I think this is a work

style issue. Many women in Japan who are
asked to take promotions, who are told thatthey could be management level, say no,even though they are capable. When asked
why they said no, they say that, when theylook at their boss who currently has that
position, and they look at their work styleand work-life balance, they don’t want to dothat. I think many people in Japan -- both
men and women -- are wondering why they
have to work so many long hours pushingpaper. Effectiveness, or the result or theoutcome, is what ought to be measured, as
opposed to how many hours you spend in
the process. We really need to change theviews in many companies about how tomeasure people’s productivity, and output,
and demonstrate to people that you areevaluated by output and productivity, not by
how many hours you work. A lot of women,
when they look at who is going to bearound them, and how they have to workfor the next 10 or 20 years, are simply notinterested. It really requires the whole
company to change. It relates to thediversity issue, but it’s not just for women. I
think there are plenty of men who would liketo not have to spend 12 hours every day inthe office, or stay until their boss leaves theoffice, which is a typical story you hear inJapan. If you are productive and your work
is done, go home. I think it requires mindset
changes for the entire company if you reallywant to promote diversity and gender
diversity, to promote them to senior
managers and keep them. Also, when wetalk about female board members, it
requires another mindset change.
Japanese board member candidates are
typically retired former presidents or CEOsof the company -- at least until recently,
though I think it has changed. But by
definition, you don’t have enough woman
there. So, if you are defining the board
member candidates in that way, you will
never get there. I always tell my companies
that allowing senior employees to serve onanother company’s board increases that
person’s knowledge and perspective. In
many Japanese companies, employees are
there for their entire lives. That is the only
thing they know about how a business isrun. If they go outside their domain, they
can see how other companies do things, viaa board member’s perspective. I think thatis a tremendous learning, not only for that
person, but also for that person’s company
where he/she is serving as a manager. I
think companies should open thatfloodgate, which I think is happening a little
bit today, especially to recruit female board
directors in Japan. I think we should domore of that because it is a win-win foreverybody.
Oasis Do you have any other tips or bestpractices as a leader yourself on leading
diverse management teams, both in Japanand in the US? Are there any practices that

corporates can implement to promote theexchange of diverse opinions among the
top management, regardless of race orgender?
Higashi I think at many Japanesecompanies, Japanese people in general – I
hate to generalize, but let’s just keep it
general – culturally, they speak up very
differently. For example, if you are trying tobecome a global company and you haveJapanese employees and non-Japaneseemployees, and you have a meeting with amix of people, if the non-Japanese bossasks people’s opinions, Americans will most
likely raise their hands to express theiropinions, because they are very vocal,
because it is how they are trained. I
remember in my first year of businessschool, class participation counted for 50%,so participation was a matter of life ordeath. If you didn’t participate, you didn’t
survive. I thought there was something off
about the way I was dealing with the rulesof the game, because by the time I raised
my hand, somebody else was alreadytalking. The professor had already called onthat person. I realized that the American
students were raising their hands as soon
as the professor asked the question. I
thought, they cannot already have ananswer, when the professor has not evenfinished the question. Then I realized that
the American students raised their hands
before they knew what the answer was.
They just had their hands up to get the
chance for the professor to call on them,and then thought about the answer in those
5 seconds. So, I figured that out, and I
tested that myself, and ensured that thetiming worked. Now back to the corporate
environment. Let’s say the boss in themeeting just asked you a question.
American people, in general, are preparedto say whatever they have in mind. Their
view is: we’re just developing ideas here, so
I’m going to say what I think. Maybe it’s
half-baked, and it’s not perfect, but it’sokay. And Japanese employees – again,
this is a generalization – are often quiet,
and the meeting ends without them saying
anything, so the boss thinks they don’t havea point of view. That’s so dangerous,
because the Japanese person isformulating a perfect answer, and she or hecannot express that in the moment that theboss asks during the meeting. So the time
passes, and if if the boss is not sensitive tothat, you will be judged. There is a seniorperson in a company I am on the board of
who figured this out. He said he asks theJapanese employees any questions hewants to ask at meetings in advance via
email, so they can prepare to share theirviews, so people have time to think about it.
Or, if the Japanese employee does not
express their opinion at the meeting, he will
give that person another day to share theirthoughts in writing. And he said that theJapanese employees often come up with
150%, A+ answers if he gives them time.
So, it is very cultural. It is very much about
the educational system that they havegrown up in. I think that is very important,for both employees and managers. To be
an excellent global employee, you need to
be able to construct, formulate and present
your point of view quickly. You need tohave that practice. If you aren’t getting thatpractice, or if you aren’t being given a dayin advance or another extra day toformulate ideas, then gradually start really
doing that faster, just like I did in mybusiness school. For managers, that kind ofsensitivity, delineating the different waysthat you treat diverse talent, is critical.
Otherwise, you will always emphasize whatis the loudest and what is the most visible,
and you will miss out on leveraging all otherkinds of talent, who may have a different
style of expressing themselves.
Oasis If you could go back 10 years ago,
what advice would you give to yourself?
Higashi I stumbled into being a board
member. I didn’t really have an objective to
become a board member, and a lot ofthings in my career happened that way. But
looking back, maybe not 10, but 5 years, I
think I learned belatedly that being
persuasive is an important skill being on theboard, particularly if you are trying to
advocate issues or points of view that are
new and potentially controversial. I am justboard member A. There are board
members B, C, D and E, and we all operate
separately, independently. But I can create
collaboration, or solicit other people’s views
outside of the boardroom, to educate eachother and share information about points ofview, so that the discussion in theboardroom would not be just one person
throwing their point of view against the wall
to see if it sticks, because the others are
already prepared to engage in thediscussion. They may agree or disagree,
but at least we can have a real discussion.
Sometimes in the boardroom, especiallywhen introducing new or challenging topics,
you toss it, and it drops. I learned that there
is a skill involved in how to be morepersuasive, not just by words, but in theprocess that I take to have everybody
around the boardroom see the topics from acertain lens. Gender diversity, which is apart of ESG, is one of those topics. With
ESG and corporate purpose, which are
fairly new and really developed in last few
years, we’re seeing accelerated interest, forgood reason. But companies are in different
stages of understanding that. I learned thatimportance of persuasion on these issues
myself five years ago, when I was a lonevoice hitting my head against the wall,
saying, “Why don’t people get this?” I think I
could have done even better. Companies

gradually come along, but the process issometimes painful.
Oasis I have just one final question. Whatadvice you would you give to women who
aspire to a board director position? You
have shared a lot already, but any final
thoughts?
Higashi A lot of people ask me thatquestion. And to be honest, I am not sure if
I like that question. Aspiring to be a board
member? You don’t do things to become aboard member, you get there by the virtueof being good at what you do in business,or in academia, or whatever. But I think one
common theme is being able to represent
what you stand for in a very logical, rational
fashion, and being able to listen to others
and adapt your views in a professionalsetting. It’s something I think is important
for anybody. At the end of the day, doing
well in your field is the most important. And
perhaps also networking, whether it is WCD(Women Corporate Directors), or otherdirectors’ organizations, create that
network. Head-hunters place a very small
percentage of board members. You needpeople really watching your performance,
knowing how good you are, and thinking,“She would be a great candidate.”
Oasis Thank you so much for your timeand for sharing your experience and advice.
We truly believe that hearing from you
helps 30% Club members to understandfrom the inside the journeys and challenges
of a board director. Thank you so much,
Emiko.
Higashi Thank you for having me.

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