Back in 1986, Tomoko Namba didn't really know what management consultancy firms did. She just wanted to join a company where she could "work and make money" at the same level as a man.
Fresh out of Tokyo's Tsuda College, Namba joined the Japanese branch of consulting firm McKinsey & Co. at a time when professional positions for women in Japan were still very limited, despite the enactment the same year of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law.
But two years later -- after averaging just three hours' sleep a night -- she was worn out and resigned. "I'd become obsessed with getting results and being No. 1 in everything I'd worked so hard for," she recalled. "I just got too tired."