Stephanie Drews talks about rethinking women's strategies in finance

Stephanie Droz, president of Japan's Nikko Asset Management, has never participated in karaoke.

One of the very few women at the top of global asset management, and the only foreign leader of a leading financial services firm in Japan, Droz long ago decided to do things differently. This included avoiding the boozy, late-night client meetings that abounded in the industry then and are still an important part of it today.

“I remember when I had my first child,” she says, looking out at Tokyo from her office on the 42nd floor.

“She was just a baby, and I was still breastfeeding her, and it was very difficult. And I remember that very moment when I decided: ‘I’m not going to do it this way anymore’… Instead I was just going to focus on performing. And that’s where I started.” My business is getting off the ground.”

Overcome expectations
Now, 10 years after joining Japanese fund management group Nikko, and after 25 years in finance, Droz is determined to try to remove the kind of structural problems she had to overcome.

When she started new jobs, she always expected to have “a much bigger burden on herself and a lot bigger hurdles to climb,” she recalls. “And that was a bit sad… I'm trying to make sure the next generation doesn't internalize that. I wanted to change the structure so they could execute on their own terms.”

From consulting to financing
A staunch environmentalist and vegetarian in a country where eating meat and fish can be compulsory, Druze, a single mother of three and owner of an animal sanctuary 100 kilometers from Tokyo, took a circuitous route to Japan. After studying at Oxford University, the German-born Droz made a “small career mistake at the beginning” by choosing a management consulting firm.

She then worked her way into funding by earning an MBA from Harvard Business School and spent 13 years in the private wealth business of US bank Morgan Stanley in London, before moving to the ultra-high net worth unit of Barclays.

Droz joined Nikko in 2014 and moved to Japan a year later – having never visited the country before and having no working knowledge of the language. She was soon tasked with making huge parts of the business digital, one by one: “By the time Covid happened, we had gone fully digital. This allowed us to have our strongest two years on the international side.”

Networking and language lessons
Less than 1 percent of Japan's largest listed companies are run by a woman. But Droz was promoted to the top job in 2022, tasked with overseeing Nikko's $210 billion in assets under management and nearly 1,000 employees in 11 countries.

People were saying, how can I get a slot? And I say, well, just ask me

She attributes her rise to the deep networks she built across the company, whether through managing different units or through less traditional means — including the one-hour English lessons she gave colleagues four days a week, from 2015 until the pandemic hit.

She recalls that her colleagues were “absolutely shocked” when they realized she would offer this to anyone, no matter how young. “People would say, ‘How can I get a slot?’ And I’d say, ‘Well, just ask me.

But the problem is that Droz remains an anomaly, not just in finance or the often strict hierarchical world of Japanese business, but in her own company. Only a quarter of Nikko's executives are women.

Japan has set a target of women holding 30 percent of executive positions at the largest listed companies by 2030 – a target that Droz says is actually very difficult to achieve because so few women progress through the ranks.

For this reason, she avoids offering any congratulations for her position, and points out that there is a cognitive dissonance in how people evaluate the changes made in the workplace in general.

The proportion of female fund managers is 12.1 percent globally, according to a September 2023 Citywire report.

“Yes, we have more women at the board level, but the reality is that it doesn't impact a 32-year-old woman with a one-year-old,” Droz points out. “It's not flowing fast enough.”

“The industry can either convince itself that the situation is getting better, or you can address the uncomfortable truth and say we are nowhere near where we should be,” she adds.

Rethink the future
Droz calls for a complete rethink of how women join the industry, and outlines a “comprehensive framework that extends from employment to retirement.” This means all companies agreeing to change hiring standards, create new alternative career paths, and ensure that maternity leave does not hinder career progression.

But since that is still out of her control, especially in a regulated industry that can be slow to change, the most important measure in her talent is allowing people to work from home, without restrictions. Once this is done, other steps can follow, including support networks within the company.

“The biggest step I've taken is to allow up to 100 percent work from home because that's the biggest structural problem that exists,” Droz says. “What comes next is also extremely important. But without this first step, everything else will not be doable.”

While other financial companies have scaled back on remote work since the outbreak of the pandemic, Droz is determined to find ways to mitigate the side effects. She argues that if the ability to move up in a company is hampered by being away from the office, “then you have a broken promotion system.”

Although she is proud of what she has done so far, she still clearly sees the fact that there is still much more to be done.

You have to keep moving, taking small wins where you can, Droz says: “You'll never, ever, ever stop.” . . You're simply not pretending [that all is well]”.