For Miyuki Zeniya, the first female full-time board member in Japan's banking industry, her challenge at Saikyo Bank is a challenge to the country's conservative banking world.
In April, the small regional bank in Yamaguchi Prefecture with assets of 673.2 billion yen headhunted Zeniya, 42, from Hu-Management Japan Co., an outplacement firm at which she was a managing director. Two months later, the bank made her a senior managing director to be based in Tokyo.
Her first mission was to re-energize the bank by cultivating new demand. Her second was to get information about the multitude of lending and investment opportunities in Tokyo.