Cover Interview

Akimoto Uchikawa and Yukako Uchinaga Talk about D&I

Why Does Teijin Need to Foster D&I?

Established a committee to promote the empowerment of women under the leadership of top management in 1999
Established a department specializing in women’s empowerment the following year (2000) to promote D&I as a basic management issue

Reaffirming the importance of leveraging diverse human resources

Introduced as a system
Introduced as a program

1999
In his 2023 commemorative message on the anniversary of Teijin’ s founding, CEO Akimoto Uchikawa expressed his ideas about
D&I and Teijin’ s business and system reforms as follows: By meeting our customers where they stand and helping them toovercome their challenges, we will be able to create businesses that support society. The Teijin Group has a range of employees,
and by promoting D&I we can make the Group an even more creative organization. I would like all members of the Group to shareits corporate DNA and purpose so that we can achieve reforms as a unified team.

2014

2003

Granted a prize of excellence from the Minister of
Health, Labour and Welfare as a company promoting gender equality
W I N D P r o g r a m : 2007
Collective training Acquisition of “Kurumin”+ mentor system
certification under the Act
on Advancement of
Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation
Women’s EmpowerChildren
ment Promotion Office
The Office restructured into
the Diversity Promotion Office

Organized a committee topromote the empowermentof women

2000

2001

The Teijin Group has been fostering D&I since 2000. That means it is now time to go back and ask ourselves why the Teijin Groupneeds to foster D&I—and then answer the question in a way that speaks to our shared values. To this end, we interviewed CEO
Uchikawa and Yukako Uchinaga, who is a leading figure in the promotion of D&I and served as outside director of the TeijinGroup for five years. In the interview, the two leaders talked about the present and future of Teijin’ s D&I with Fumiaki Sakurai,
who became the CHRO of the Group in April 2023 and served as the facilitator of the discussion.

2005

Babysitter
Hello Again
Special training for service
female sales andengineering staff

Inclusion in
Diversity
Management
Selection 100

2021

Leave system for employees
whose spouses are transferredoverseas

2013

2016

H o u r l y Acquisition of
paid leave “Eruboshi” cer tification under thesystemAct on the Promo2011
t i o n o f W o m e n ’s
2008
EWA Program
Active Engagement
W o r k- f r o m - h o m e
in Professional Lifesystem (present
teleworking system)

Promotion of women’s
empowerment
Increase in the number of
personnel
Better work-life balance
Corporate culture improvement& awareness-raising activities

2018-2022

Named a Nadeshiko
Brand company

2019

Support for employees inseeking a childcare
providerKosodate Mirai Concierge

Eligibility to apply towork under the
teleworking system
extended to all
employees

2022

Revision of thechildcare leavesystem topromote paternity leave

Global D&I promotion

Figure 1: Teijin Group’s Diversity Promotion History

Teijin has been promoting D&I in stepwith the development of its employees.
For further promotion, we need to make ashared commitment to D&I across theboard.

ProfileFacilitator

Akimoto Uchikawa

Yukako Uchinaga

Fumiaki Sakurai

President and CEO, Representative
Director of the Board

Chairperson and Representative Director,
Japan Women’s Innovative Network
Former Outside Director of Teijin Limited

Teijin Group Corporate Of ficer, Chief
Human Resources Officer (CHRO)

Joined Teijin Limited in 1990. Engaged mainlyin the development of fiber technologies andworked in the Netherlands as an expat for five
years from 2003. Became a corporate officerof the Teijin Group in April 2017 and was
appointed as an executive officer andmember of the Board of Teijin Limited in June
2021. Has been in the current position sinceApril 2022.

Joined IBM Japan, Ltd. in 1971. Became thecompany’ s first female director in 1995 andwas subsequently appointed as a managing
director and senior executive officer of thecompany. In 2007, established the Japan
Women’ s Innovative Network (J-Win)* as a
specified non-profit corporation to support
companies in promoting and establishingdiversity management. Served as an outside
director of Teijin Limited from 2018 to June21, 2023.

After heading the human resources divisionand serving in other positions at Astellas
Pharma Inc., became the chief administrative
officer (CAO) and chief ethics & complianceofficer (CECO) of the company until his
resignation in September 2022. Has been in
the current position since April 2023.

―The Teijin Group establishedt h e Wo m e n’s E m p o w e r m e n t
Promotion Of fice in Japan in2000 to foster workplace
diversity ahead of othercompanies. The support target
was subsequently expanded to include
non - Japanese employees and people with
dis abilitie s . Sinc e 2 019, th e O f fic e has b e en
implementing D&I promotion measures not only in
J a p an bu t also inte rn at ion ally a s t h e Glo b al
Diversity & Inclusion Team. (See Figure 1: TeijinGroup’s Diversity Promotion History.)
What do you think about Teijin’s current D&I-related
situation?
Uchikawa: Looking at the entire TeijinGroup, the number of non-Japaneseemployees accounts for more than 50%
a s we a re expa nd i ng ou r bu si ne ss
overseas. This means that we are not

short on diversity in terms of our human resources. Goingforward, I therefore think it is necessary to foster inclusion or“mixing.”
In Japan, however, we still have many challenges to meet andhave been unable to keep up with the pace set by othercompanies regarding D&I.
Uchinaga: At J-Win*, we are analyzing the progress madewith diversity by companies in Japan and presenting theresults as numerical figures. The analysis has revealed that
the Teijin Group is paying a lot of attention to the promotion
of D&I but has not yet achieved adequate results in Japan.
―Why do you think this is?
Uchinaga: I am afraid that the basic
conce pt of D&I h a s not yet be e nwidely shared across the Group. Top
leaders including Mr. Uchikawa have a
deep understanding of the concept, butother managers, par ticularly male
ma nager s who have ach ieved success by a dopt i ng aconventional style and conventional values, seem not to. But
this does not mean that these managers don’t take D&I
seriously. They just tend to give priority to dealing with theimmediate business at hand. To put it another way, there ismuch room for improvement.

* J-Win is an organization formed to support companies in promoting and establishing diversity
management. It is composed of corporate members, including the Teijin Group.

2 t o g e t h e r 2023

t o g e t h e r 2023 3

Cover Interview

Akimoto Uchikawa and Yukako Uchinaga Talk about D&I

Why Does Teijin Need to Foster D&I?
Reaffirming the importance of leveraging diverse human resources

Uchikawa: Teijin employees take their work very seriously,
wh ich somet i mes means they focus too much on themeasures themselves rather than the reason for implementing
them. Initially, they started to implement D&I promotion
measures to achieve the clear goal of enabling diverse
personnel to thrive as a precondition for corporate growth.
But I think over time they began to focus solely on the actual
measures, including the setting and obeying of rules. Now
they also seem to be overly absorbed in achieving KPIs, suchas increasing the ratio of women among new employees andmanagers to certain levels.
Uchinaga: Maybe they have lost a bit of focus regarding therationale for implementing the measures.
Uchikawa: I think it is important for employees to have agenuine understanding of why they need to promote D&I. I
therefore want to redo the process to enable employees todevelop such a shared understanding, starting by indicating
the direction in which the Teijin Group should head. The
Teijin Group is also beginning to implement a project to set aGroup purpose. When I became president, I promised our
employees that I would work to help them truly understandand share the goal of promoting D&I, which I think is very
important.

D&I is necessary for the realization of thelong-term vision and to transform Teijin
into a resilient organization.
―Please let me ask you again why you need topromote D&I.
Uchikawa: The Teijin Group is in theprocess of reviewing its management
strategies, choosing to continuously
foster reforms for further growth. To
achieve such growth we need to create
new business models and innovations,for which we regard the promotion of D&I as one of ourimportant management strategies. Also, for the Teijin Groupto transform itself from a rigid organization into a resilient
one, D&I is essential. We have been doing everything rigidly,

4 t o g e t h e r 2023

and being rigid is one of our strengths. However, such rigidly
recently left us unable to deal with some unexpected events.
Uchinaga: Some people mistake the promotion of D&I withdealing with human rights-related issues. They are twodifferent things, however, and promoting D&I is both ameans to strengthen the company and a management strategy
for survival in business. Let me share my own experience
regarding this. When IBM fell into the red in 1993, an
outsider named Louis Gerstner was invited in to lead theprocess of rebuilding the company, andwh at he d id a s t he la s t p a r t of t herebu ild i ng process wa s to promoted i ve r s i t y. T h a n k s t o t h a t r e fo r m ,w o m e n’s e m p o w e r m e n t w a s a l s orobustly promoted at IBM Japan, where I
was working at the time. Later, when he visited Japan, I had
an opportunity to meet Mr. Gerstner and thank him for his
refor m. He replied: “I did it not for women but for thecompany.” He also said that for the reform of IBM he had
deemed it necessar y to draw on people with different
backgrounds in terms of race, experience and others, inaddition to WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), who
until then had accounted for a large propor tion of thecompany’s employees. What he said left a lasting impression
on me.
Uchikawa: In the days when companies sought to beat thecompetition by mass-manufacturing products of uniform
quality for a low cost, a homogenous organization might havebeen easier for management to reform.
Uchinaga: Yes, it was OK in the age of “Japan as No. 1.”
Uchikawa: If our company had decided to go on doing thesame thing going forward, it might be all right for it tocontinue as it is. However, we have decided to support
society in facing complex changes, and we therefore need tochange ourselves. We must achieve mutual growth byrespecting diversity.
Uchinaga: Now is the best timing for such a change, I
think. When I asked the CEO of a certain company, “Whatdoes D&I mean to you?” the person answered, “It means tomake a rough organization.” In Japan people tend to valueorganizational harmony, good teamwork and the like. But as

What is an Old Boys Network (OBN)?
The term OBN is a shorthand characterization of the implicit culture and atmosphere of long-established successful organizations and companies. It includes
unwritten promises, rules, work practices and communication methods.

Sharedsuccesses
Peer pressure

Implicit
rules

OBN
Old Boys Network

Prejudice
Misunderstanding

Tacit
understanding
Sontaku
Behavioral
style

Figure 2: What is an OBN? (Source: Reference materials provided by J-Win)a prerequisite for i n novation you need to ma ke you rorganization “rough” by including stones of various shapes
in addition to round stones.
Uchikawa: The Teijin Group already has diverse personnel.
Going forward, we will provide employees in Japan withmore oppor t u n it ies to work with thei r non-Japanesecolleagues. We will also further promote the empowermentof women to speed up the promotion of D&I across the TeijinGroup.

Empowerment of women has been
hindered in Japan due to OBN andunconscious bias
Uchinaga: Personally, I think companies need to further
empower women as the first step to promote D&I in Japan,
because they have so many talented female employees who
have a lot of k nowledge about the company and haveaccumulated sufficient skills and expertise but are nottrapped by past successes.
Uchikawa: Empowerment of women is a must.
Uchinaga: Japan is behind other countries, particularly interms of the empowerment of women in the fields of politics
and economics. In the gender gap index ranking provided by
the World Economic Forum, Japan was in 94th place in 2010
and then dropped substantially in the ranking to 116th in
2022. [According to the 2023 survey results announced after
this dialogue meeting was held, Japan is currently ranked

125th, hitting a new low.] Why do you think Japan’s ranking
is lower than that of 12 years ago when the government andcompanies have been striving to narrow the gender gap?
Uchikawa: I think it is because the rest of the world has
made improvements ahead of Japan.
Uchinaga: Exactly. Over the past decade, technologies haveadvanced rapidly, leading to substantial changes in businessmodels. An old organization composed mainly of people witha shared experience of past success cannot hit upon new
ideas. For innovation, it is critical to leverage diverse humanresources by measures such as women’s empowerment. The
rest of the world has recognized this fact earlier than Japan.
―Te ijin h a s b e e n fo cu s in g o n im p l e m e nt in gmeasures to support the empowerment of womenf o r a l o n g t i m e . H o w e v e r, w e h a v e n o t y e t
substantially increased the number of femalel e a d e r s . M s . U c h i n a g a , yo u h ave l o n g b e e ndeveloping female leaders at J-Win. Could you
propose a solution for this?
Uchinaga: Companies are facing the same issue acrossJapan. First, you need to change the male-oriented corporate
culture. We call a men-oriented closed organization andculture an “Old Boys Network,” or OBN (see Figure 2: Whatis an OBN?), and I am afraid Teijin has a strong OBN. What
percentage of your employees are women?

t o g e t h e r 2023 5

Cover Interview

Akimoto Uchikawa and Yukako Uchinaga Talk about D&I

Why Does Teijin Need to Foster D&I?
Reaffirming the importance of leveraging diverse human resources―In Japan, female employees make up around 20%of the total. The share of female managers is about
7%, which is low compared with our major Group
companies outside Japan, where in some cases it
is approaching 30%.
Uchinaga: Male managers might tend toward the view that“it’s difficult for women to do this job while having babies
and raising children.” Having and raising children are indeed
important life events, but there are women who want to takeon more responsibility at work while at the same time raisinga family.
Uchikawa: So the unconscious bias of management is afactor that prevents women from moving up in their careers.
If we change ou r work r ules to give more suppor t toemployees who want to develop their careers despite having
restrictions on their working hours and as a result much more
women can thrive and contribute to the company, it will be atruly wonderful thing for the company. This way of thinking
will help clarify the true goal of empowering women, and we
can set new rules not as a goal but as a means to achieve thegoal of reforming our work practices as part of our D&I
promotion effort.

Women need to understand the rewardsof stepping up their career and to havethe courage to grab opportunities
Uchinaga: Male managers need to change their mindsets, andI also want more female employees to understand how
rewarding it can be to step up their career. There are cases
where women tur n down promotions, even though thecompany is very keen to promote them.
Uchikawa: As a matter of fact, some female employees havedeclined our offer to provide them with career development
opportunities.
Uchinaga: I n the past, women did not have enoughopportunities to discover how rewarding it is to be promoted
and what it is like to play the role of a manager and view thingsfrom higher up in the organization, which I think is a factor
causing some women to be reluctant to take a promotion.

6 t o g e t h e r 2023

Uchikawa: What advice do you give to women who do notwant to be promoted?
U c h i n a g a : To a w o m a n w h o s a y s , “ I h a v e n oself-conf idence. I cannot do it,” I will say, “You havesubordinates and do not need to do everything on your own.”
To a woman who says, “But my manager seems to have hardtime,” I say, “You may face similardifficulties to your manager, but you
can also make use of the company’ssystems and money to do what you
want to do and contribute to society.
D o n’ t y o u t h i n k t h a t w o u l d b e
wonderful?” In order to do what you want to do, you need to
be in a higher position within the company. Many men know
how fun it is to be promoted, don’t they?
Uchikawa: Speaking for myself, I did
not think it was fun to be promoted, as I
work for reasons of self-realization. It is,howeve r, t r ue t h at you h ave mor eauthority and can do a wider range oft h i ng s wh e n you o c c u py a h ig h e r
position. For me, working overseas as an expat helped me al o t i n t e r m s of d e ve l o p i n g m y c a r e e r. I a l s o h a ve
opportunities for self-realization in my private life, butbusiness accounts for a large part of my life.
Uchinaga: Beyond self-realization, you can also makecontributions to society together with so many employees as
the top representative of Teijin, which is a blue-chipcompany. It must be great fun.
Uchikawa: It is wonderf ul that I can do it not as anindividual but together with all members of the company, andI hope female employees will not hesitate to grasp the growth
opportunities provided by the company and to embracechallenges boldly.
By the way, is it a problem peculiar to Japan that the numberof female leaders is not readily increasing?
Uchinaga: No, it is a global problem. However, the world
has been changing a lot thanks to the emergence of a large
number of female role models, who are demonstrating thebenefits of climbing the career ladder. I hope that the TeijinGroup will have more female directors and general managers

who can demonstrate those benefits to junior employees
based on their own experiences.

the scope of women’s empowerment . Finally,please share your message to employees.

Three important tips to promote theempowerment of women

Uchikawa: Let me reiterate the needto transform the Teijin Group into a
resilient organization that is able tou n d e r t a ke r efo r m s . To t h i s e n d ,promoting D&I is ver y impor tant.
Te i j i n w i l l a n n o u n c e i t s n e w
medium-term management plan next
year. Toward the announcement we need to hold discussions
to set our corporate purpose and make the importance of
D&I more widely understood across the Group, which I thinkis essential.
Uchinaga: I would like to ask female employees of Teijin toembrace challenges more proactively.
Teijin has a lot of talented employees.
Please keep stepping up your career toa ch ieve p e r son a l f u l f i l l me nt , a sworking for a company until the age of
60 to 70 means devoting your prime
years to it.

Managers should seek to rid
themselves of the unconscious biasthat “it is difficult to entrust duties ofgreat responsibility to women.”
Female employees need to be awareof t h e joys of ste p ping up t h e ir
careers and grasp the opportunities
offered with ownership as membersof the organization.
All employees should understandt h a t w o m e n ’s e m p o w e r m e n t i snecessary not only for women but
also for the grow th of the entire
company.
Promoting D&I across the Teijin Group to
make it an organization able to undertake
reforms
Uchikawa: I see. Men-oriented organizations need to bec h a n g e d , a n d wo m e n a l s o n e e d t o g e t i nvol ve d i norga n i zat ions more proact ively. T hese t wo a re bot hnecessary. Talking with you today has made me think that we
can expect female employees to play even more roles in theworkplace while establishing more support systems for them.
Uchinaga: Yes, indeed. You should have more expectations
for female employees. By going to female employees directly
and asking them to “please do this for Teijin,” the CEO andthe direct managers of the employees can communicate themagnitude of their expectations, which will in turn increase
their motivation to work hard. Without this, the employee
might think, “They say they will promote me because thegovernment wants them to promote women, but actually they
expect little from me.”This dialogue meeting was held on June 8, 2023.

―I would like to lead theestablishment of a system tosupport employees to
au to no mou sly d eve lo p t h e ir
careers as part of the personnel
system. This will help broadent o g e t h e r 2023 7