---
title: "Japan's presidents are over 60: what that means for sales"
description: "Japan's presidents average 60.8 and half of companies have no successor. Not aging but a decision-chain problem: who decides, by what. Succession is the window."
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-11/presidents-average-age-sixty-cover-en-2026-10-m.png
---

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

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Japan by the Numbers

In this article

1. [The usual reading is aging](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s1)
2. [Read it as a decision chain](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s2)
3. [Three decisions it changes](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s3)
4. [What this has to do with "we'll consider it"](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s4)
5. [Look at your own target list](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s5)

1. [Home](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en)
2. [Articles](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog?hsLang=en)
3. [Japan by the Numbers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/tag/japan-by-the-numbers)

# The average company president is over sixty. What that means if you're selling

A president sits for 26 years, and suppliers get reconsidered only in the succession year

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)5 min read

Contents5

1. [The usual reading is aging](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s1)
2. [Read it as a decision chain](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s2)
3. [Three decisions it changes](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s3)
4. [What this has to do with "we'll consider it"](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s4)
5. [Look at your own target list](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty#s5)

**Series「Five numbers to read before entering Japan」** · Part 3 of 5

If you sell to Japanese companies, the person who signs is probably over sixty and has held the job for a long time. Teikoku Databank surveys the average age of Japanese company presidents every year. In 2025 it was 60.8. In 1990 it was 54.0. That's thirty-five straight years of increase, with no exceptions. A quarter of presidents are over 70. More than half are over 60. The annual turnover rate is 3.84%, which means a president sits for twenty-six years on average.

Another figure from the same source: half of Japanese companies have no designated successor. That share has fallen from 66% in 2017, but a good part of the decline is companies choosing to close rather than find one.

## The usual reading is aging

These numbers usually get filed under the headline "Japan is aging" and left there. If you're trying to sell in Japan, that reading tells you nothing.

A president sits for twenty-six years, and suppliers get reconsidered only in the succession year

Age and succession of Japanese company presidents (Teikoku Databank, president age survey and successor absence survey, 2025)

1. 1990Average president age: 54.0Then thirty-five straight years of increase
2. 2017No successor: 66%Falling since, largely because more firms chose to close rather than keep looking
3. 2025Average 60.8; no successor: 50.1%A quarter are over 70, more than half over 60. Turnover of 3.84% a year means twenty-six years in the seat
4. Succession yearA new president’s first yearThe only window when the whole supplier list is reconsidered. 36% of new presidents are internal promotions

Read as “aging”, the numbers don’t tell you when to go. Flag firms with a president over 70 and no successor: the window opens within three years.

Figure 1. The average Japanese president’s age rose from 54.0 in 1990 to 60.8 in 2025, thirty-five straight years, and a turnover rate of 3.84% means twenty-six years in the seat, so with 50.1% of firms lacking a successor, suppliers are reconsidered almost only in a new president’s first year.

## Read it as a decision chain

In organizational diagnosis I don't ask who has influence. I walk decision chains. For one specific purchase, I ask who was consulted first, whose remark changed minds and who signed. Turn that method on your customers and the president's age stops being demographics and becomes sales intelligence.

A 65-year-old president, thirty years at the same company, no successor. What are his criteria for a purchasing decision? In most cases I've seen, the order is risk, trust, relationship, and only then performance and price. He isn't incapable of understanding new things. He's doing a different calculation. If this supplier fails, can I clean it up at my age? Will this decision become a problem I leave to whoever comes next? If I drop a supplier I've worked with for twenty years, how do I explain it to them?

None of that appears anywhere in your product material. Your material is about features, efficiency and ROI, written for a 40-year-old purchasing manager. The person who decides is reading a different page.

## Three decisions it changes

This number changes who your sales material is written for, and when you go.

One: two sets of material. One for the people who will use the product, about features and efficiency. The other is for the person who decides, and it answers only three questions. If something goes wrong, who comes, and how fast? How long will you be in Japan? How will you sit alongside the current supplier, rather than replace them? The second is usually one page, and it decides whether anything gets signed.

Two: find the heir or the head clerk. Half of companies have no designated successor. In the other half, the successor is usually already inside. Teikoku's 2025 data shows internal promotion at 36% of new presidents, overtaking family succession at 32% for the first time. That person may now be a senior managing director, or an old hand with no formal title whom everyone listens to. They are the biggest creditor on [the favor ledger](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/the-favor-ledger?hsLang=en), and the next person who will decide. Reaching them now is the cheapest it will ever be.

Three: watch the succession year. With presidents sitting twenty-six years on average, succession is a once-a-generation event. A new president's first year is the only window in which the whole supplier list gets reconsidered, because he needs to show he's different from his predecessor and he doesn't yet have twenty-year ties to the incumbents. On your market map, mark target customers with the president's age and succession status. Over 70 and no successor means a window opening within three years.

## What this has to do with "we'll consider it"

When a Japanese customer says they'll consider it, often it isn't stalling. It means someone on the decision chain hasn't nodded, and that someone is usually this president. However well you get on with the purchasing manager, if it can't get past him, it's "we'll consider it." Once you know that, you can use the waiting time. Find a way to get the second set of material into his hands.

## Look at your own target list

Take the top twenty companies on your Japan target list. How old are their presidents? How many have named a successor? If those two columns are empty, your sales team is negotiating with someone they can't see.

Sources

- [帝国データバンク 全国「社長年齢」分析調査（2025年）：平均60.8歳、35年連続上昇、交代率3.84%](https://www.tdb.co.jp/report/economic/20260216-presidentage2025/)
- [帝国データバンク 全国「後継者不在率」動向調査（2025年）：不在率50.1%、新社長は内部昇格36.1%・同族32.3%・M&A 20.6%](https://www.zaikei.co.jp/releases/3194399/)

**In this series**  
Previous：[The country with the most century-old companies: why newcomers can't move customers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/country-of-century-old-companies?hsLang=en)  
Next：[SMEs are 99% of Japanese companies. Decide who you're selling to first](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/smes-are-99-percent-who-do-you-sell-to?hsLang=en)

For what this age profile already does to companies, see [the follow-up on 264 no-successor bankruptcies in the first half of 2026](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/no-successor-bankruptcies-japan?hsLang=en).

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)

## Read next

1. 01[The country with the most century-old companies: why newcomers can't move customers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/country-of-century-old-companies?hsLang=en)5 min
   
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2. 02[Eighty percent of Japanese companies use the cloud. For what?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/eighty-percent-use-cloud-what-for?hsLang=en)5 min
   
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[Column guide: Japan by the Numbers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/guide-japan-by-the-numbers?hsLang=en) · [Glossary](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/glossary?hsLang=en) · [The method behind the articles](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/method?hsLang=en)

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