---
title: How Far Can Foreigners Rise in Japanese Companies?
description: Of 130 foreign directors at Nikkei 225 firms, 95 are outside directors. No one counts foreign managers, and only 10% of Prime firms set a target.
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-10/how-far-foreigners-rise-in-japanese-firms-cover-en-2026-10.png
---

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Career

In this article

1. [What can be counted, and what can't?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/how-far-foreigners-rise-in-japanese-firms#s1)
2. [Why is the board easier to enter than the middle?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/how-far-foreigners-rise-in-japanese-firms#s2)
3. [Where does promotion stall inside the company?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/how-far-foreigners-rise-in-japanese-firms#s3)
4. [What is the employer actually deciding?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/how-far-foreigners-rise-in-japanese-firms#s4)

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# How Far Can Foreigners Rise in Japanese Companies?

130 foreign directors at Nikkei 225 firms

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)7 min read

Contents4

1. [What can be counted, and what can't?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/how-far-foreigners-rise-in-japanese-firms#s1)
2. [Why is the board easier to enter than the middle?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/how-far-foreigners-rise-in-japanese-firms#s2)
3. [Where does promotion stall inside the company?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/how-far-foreigners-rise-in-japanese-firms#s3)
4. [What is the employer actually deciding?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/how-far-foreigners-rise-in-japanese-firms#s4)

The usual picture is a glass ceiling at the very top of Japanese companies. The evidence that can be counted points lower. Foreign nationals hold 130 board seats at Nikkei 225 companies, and 95 of those seats belong to outside directors. The place where foreigners are hardest to find is the layer underneath: section chief, department head, the jobs a company fills by promoting its own people.

## What can be counted, and what can't?

Board seats can be counted. Managers cannot. I could not find an official figure for how many foreigners hold management posts in Japanese companies.

The labor ministry counts foreign workers every October from the notifications employers must file. At the end of October 2025 there were 2,571,037, of whom 865,588 held professional or technical residence statuses. The published results break that total down by residence status, nationality, industry and prefecture. Rank is not among them. I went through who those workers are in [Foreign workers in Japan: who the 2.57 million are, and where](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/foreign-workers-in-japan-by-the-numbers?hsLang=en).

The nearest thing to a count that I found is old. Toyo Keizai's CSR Company Directory, 2012 edition (published February 2012), covered 1,117 major companies. Only 112 of them, 10%, reported even one foreign manager. I have not found a newer public figure with a denominator, so I can't say how far that has moved.

What companies say about the future can be counted too. Japan's Corporate Governance Code asks listed companies to set voluntary, measurable goals for promoting women, foreign nationals and mid-career hires into management. The Tokyo Stock Exchange's 2023 white paper tallied the governance reports filed as of 14 July 2022. Of 1,837 Prime Market companies, 913 (49.7%) stated a measurable target for women. For foreign nationals it was 233 (12.7%), and only 187 (10.2%) had a target for foreign managers specifically.

Nine Prime companies in ten had no stated number for foreign managers, as of July 2022.

## Why is the board easier to enter than the middle?

Because most foreign directors are brought in from outside, and an outside director's seat does not require running a Japanese-language organization.

Spencer Stuart's Japan Board Index 2025 covers Nikkei 225 and TOPIX 100 companies as of 30 June 2025. Among the Nikkei 225, 73 companies (32%) had at least one foreign national on the board, up from 24% in 2021. Foreign nationals were 5% of all directors: 130 people. Of those 130, 95 were external directors and 35 were internal.

Three in four foreign directors at Nikkei 225 companies sit on the board from outside

Nikkei 225 companies as of 30 June 2025 (%). Foreign national directors: 130 in total, 95 external and 35 internal; the 73% and 27% are calculated as 95/130 and 35/130. Spencer Stuart, Japan Board Index 2025

**Nikkei 225 boards**

- Companies with at least one foreign director73 of 225

  32%
- Foreign nationals among all directors

  5%

**The 130 foreign directors**

- External directors95 people

  73%
- Internal directors35 people

  27%

Across 225 of Japan's largest companies, 35 foreign nationals are directors from inside the business.

Figure 1. At Nikkei 225 companies as of 30 June 2025, 32% of boards had at least one foreign national and foreign nationals were 5% of directors; of the 130 foreign directors, 95 (73%) were external and 35 (27%) internal (Spencer Stuart, Japan Board Index 2025).

Thirty-five internal directors across 225 companies. The report does not say how many of the 35 rose through the ranks in Japan and how many were hired in as executives or came up through an overseas subsidiary, so the number who climbed the domestic ladder is smaller still.

The outside seat is the easier one to open. Boards meet a limited number of times a year. Papers can be translated and meetings interpreted, and the TSE white paper quotes a company that does exactly that because its outside directors include a foreign national. A kacho's job has no such workaround. It runs in Japanese every hour of the day.

## Where does promotion stall inside the company?

From the employer's side I see it stall at language, at the evaluation system and at seniority by year of entry. Only the first has good data.

Language first. Career-tasu, a recruitment services company, surveys major Japanese companies about foreign talent every December. In the December 2025 round, 487 companies answered, and the detailed report analyzes the 63.9% of them that employ or plan to employ highly skilled foreign staff. Asked about problems in making use of foreign employees, 58.4% chose insufficient Japanese for communication inside the company, the top answer by a wide margin. Insufficient Japanese with clients was 35.3%. The same companies were asked what level of Japanese they expect of the international students they hire once those students have joined. Business-advanced or native level was the answer from 67.7% for humanities graduates and 63.1% for science graduates.

That is the level expected of a new employee. A manager writes evaluations, drafts approval documents, handles a complaint from a client and explains a pay decision to a subordinate. My view is that employers set the bar for that work higher than the bar for entry, and rarely write it down.

Then evaluation. In the same survey 20.1% of companies said the career the employee wants and the career the company has in mind diverge, and 30.1% said they lack Japanese managers who can make good use of foreign staff. The second figure is the employer admitting the problem sits partly on its own side. The view from the other side is older data: in a 2019 Persol Research and Consulting survey of 500 foreign regular employees in Japan, the top complaint about the workplace was that promotion is slow.

Slow compared with what? Many Japanese companies grade people on accumulated ability, which in practice tracks years in the company, and the criteria are often unwritten. I described the mechanics in [Grades Are Not Titles: A Minimum Grade Table for Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/minimum-grade-system-japan?hsLang=en). I suspect the language gap makes this worse. A boss who struggles to explain a rating to a Japanese subordinate will struggle more across a language gap, and the safe rating is the middle one. A row of middle ratings does not get anyone promoted.

Last, year of entry. Promotion to kacho in a traditional company is paced by cohort, and the average kacho is in their late forties (the figures are in [Manager and Specialist Tracks in Japan Need One Grade Scale](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/manager-and-specialist-ladders?hsLang=en)). A foreigner who joined mid-career at 32 has no cohort. The system has no slot that says when this person is due.

## What is the employer actually deciding?

The question on the table is rarely "can a foreigner be a manager here." It is whether a manager's job at this company can be done by someone who is not native in Japanese. Most companies have never asked it in those words, which is why so few have a target.

Look at what the companies with targets are counting. The 2023 white paper quotes a chemical company aiming to raise the share of foreign nationals in the group's key posts to 35% by fiscal 2030, from 28% in fiscal 2021. The unit is key posts across the group, which presumably includes overseas subsidiaries. A target like that can be met without a single foreign kacho at headquarters in Japan.

So the honest answer to the title is uneven. A foreigner can reach the board of a large Japanese company, usually by being invited from outside. A foreigner can run an overseas subsidiary. The stretch in between, kacho and bucho at the Japanese parent, is where the count runs out, and it is the stretch that companies themselves do not measure. When a diversity statement gives numbers, they are usually about the board, or about the group as a whole. The count of foreign kacho and bucho in Japan is the one that is usually missing.

Sources (as of November 2026)

- [Spencer Stuart, Japan Board Index 2025 (Nikkei 225 and TOPIX 100 companies as of 30 June 2025)](https://www.spencerstuart.com/-/media/2026/01/2025-japan-board-index/ssbi_japan_board_index_2025_en.pdf)
- [Tokyo Stock Exchange, White Paper on Corporate Governance 2023, chart 85 (governance reports as of 14 July 2022; in Japanese)](https://www.jpx.co.jp/equities/listing/cg/tvdivq0000008jb0-att/cg27su0000004bk2.pdf)
- [Career-tasu, Survey on Hiring International Students and Highly Skilled Foreign Professionals, December 2025 (released 27 January 2026; 487 companies; in Japanese)](https://www.career-tasu.co.jp/press_release/12153/)
- [Career-tasu, same survey, full report (PDF, in Japanese)](https://www.career-tasu.co.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/202512_kigyou-global-report.pdf)
- [Persol Research and Consulting, Survey of Foreign Workers in Japan (fielded October to November 2019; 500 regular employees and 500 part-time workers; in Japanese)](https://rc.persol-group.co.jp/thinktank/data/foreigners-working-in-japan.html)
- [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Summary of Notifications on the Employment of Foreign Nationals, as of end of October 2025 (released 30 January 2026; in Japanese)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_68794.html)
- [Toyo Keizai Online, ranking of companies by number of foreign managers, CSR Company Directory 2012 edition (14 February 2012; in Japanese)](https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/8609)

---

Author

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)

Launching in Japan, starting with people and systems. I write about building organizations, sales teams and technology organizations in Japan, in English, Japanese and Chinese.

[Profile](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)[Contact](https://nobusato.jp/en/contact?hsLang=en)

## More in this column

1. 01[Same Title, Two Levels Apart: Foreign vs Japanese Firms](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/same-title-two-grades-apart?hsLang=en)7 min
   
   Japan officially defines a bucho as heading 20+ people and a kacho 10+. A Director with three reports meets neither. ...
2. 02[After a Counteroffer: How Both Employers See You](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/after-accepting-a-counteroffer?hsLang=en)7 min
   
   Recruiters in Japan say counteroffers come most often when no successor exists (65%). How the old employer and the ...
3. 03[What Three Languages Are Worth to an Employer in Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/what-languages-are-worth-in-japan?hsLang=en)9 min
   
   Employers in Japan rarely price a language. It works as a gate or as a condition of a seat. What a 1.4x English premium ...

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