After becoming the Bank of Japan’s highest-ranking female bureaucrat ever, Tokiko Shimizu is now turning her focus on how to shatter more glass ceilings with a plan to tackle deep-rooted gender inequality from the bottom up.
While the common path for Japanese bureaucrats after leaving the public sector is to take up a job at a major corporation or think tank, Shimizu, 59, is launching her own consultancy after leaving the BOJ in May to focus on bringing more women into STEM-related fields starting at the high school level.
"There are huge gaps between Japan and other countries, it’s one of the main motivations for starting my new business,” said Shimizu in her first interview since leaving the BOJ in May. "Japanese women are not less talented than men. I can help fill that gap because women have a lot of potential.”