Gilson will join a small band of non-Japanese CEOs that includes Owen Mahoney at Nexon, Christophe Weber at Takeda Pharmaceutical and Eva Chen at Trend Micro.
When former Nissan head Carlos Ghosn, facing trial for financial malfeasance, fled Tokyo last December, the Brazilian-born businessperson, who has dual French and Lebanese nationality, declared that foreign executives in Japan weren’t safe. The Ghosn saga prompted many to question Japan’s commitment to foreign leadership and the prospects for non-Japanese senior executives making their way up the country’s corporate ladder.
Then in September, a Belgian, Jean-Marc Gilson, currently head of the French food-and-drug ingredients maker, Roquette, became the first foreigner to run Japan’s largest chemical company, Mitsubishi Chemicals. Once again, a Japanese company was breaking the unwritten rules, naming not only a foreigner but one who lacked a long career with the company. This time, will the experiment turn out differently?
Nicholas Benes, head of the Board Director Training Institute of Japan says Gilson’s experience of Japanese life gives him a better chance of success. “In particular, the fact that his wife is Japanese will likely turn out to be helpful,” Benes says, “since she can probably give him advice the way others cannot. I would hasten to add, however, that it is not as if all appointments of foreign executives at Japanese companies have failed.”
Gilson will join a small band of non-Japanese CEOs that includes Owen Mahoney at Nexon, Christophe Weber at Takeda Pharmaceutical and Eva Chen at Trend Micro.
“On the face of things, it seems to be a good strategic move,” Benes says of Gilson’s appointment. “Mitsubishi Chemical, which is a well-governed company, appears to have correctly recognized that it must diversify and globalize, and foreign executives are essential in that process. Many more Japanese companies in the same situation need to be moving in the same direction. The type of ‘diversity’ that is most lacking in Japanese boardrooms is foreigners, relative to the need.”
Gilson will replace Mitsubishi’s current president and CEO, Hitoshi Ochi, who is set to retire at the end of the current fiscal year. On announcing the change of command, Ochi cited the company’s need to diversify its management to meet tough environmental, sustainability and globalization challenges.
