A two-day international conference aiming to empower women kicked off Friday in Tokyo with a call for companies and the government to foster more female executives — an area of gender equality where Japan greatly lags behind the global norm.

The fourth Women's International Networking Conference in Tokyo was attended by more than 200 female and male working professionals and executives. The international group was founded in 1998 by Norwegian social entrepreneur Kristin Engvig to promote female leadership, diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

"Talking to business leaders in Japan, I thought there is something more to inspire women as well as men who want to make differences," said Engvig.