When Kathy Matsui, then 25, moved from Washington, D.C. to Japan to join her husband 22 years ago, she had a few things working against her.
Born in California, she was an outsider in the country of her heritage as and didn't speak fluent Japanese. She was also a woman and half the age of most men she worked with at Barclays de Zoete Wedd.
That just motivated her to work harder. Matsui, 46, rose to become chief of equity strategy for Japan and a partner at Goldman Sachs. All while raising two children and beating breast cancer at age 36.
Ranked the No. 1 equity strategist for Japan by Institutional Investor in 2006, Matsui currently manages 40 people in offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul, Singapore, Mumbai, Bangalore, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland. Before joining Goldman in 1994 Matsui worked in the Export-Import Bank of Japan's Washington office and at Barclays de Zoete Wedd in Tokyo. She earned her bachelor's degree from Harvard and a master's from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
FINS caught up with Matsui, who's still based in Tokyo, to talk about her rise to the top in a firm and a country where women often labor at the bottom.
Julie Steinberg: How did you end up in Japan?
Kathy Matsui: My first trip to Japan was in 1986 after I graduated from Harvard and received a Rotary scholarship to study in the country. From this experience, I became interested in learning more about the Japanese economy and politics, so I pursued a master's degree in Japan studies at Johns Hopkins University's SAIS program.
Between my two years in grad school, I did a summer internship at Mitsui Bank (now Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group) and met my husband, Jesper Koll, who was working in Tokyo at the time. After completing my master's in Washington, D.C., I returned to Tokyo to be with him.
Since I needed to find a job, I explored opportunities in everything from consulting to technology (remember, this was during the Japanese "bubble," so job offers were rather abundant!)
Finance was frankly not at the top of my list, but since I love to write and interact with clients, I decided to start out in research at Barclays (at the time: Barclays de Zoete Wedd Securities).
JS: How did you get a job at Goldman?
KM: In 1994 Goldman was looking for a Japan equity strategist and they approached me. Since I was already the chief strategist at Barclays, I wasn't that interested in leaving. At the time, Barclays had recruited a number of prominent research analysts from Drexel Burnham Lambert. One of them was Abby Joseph Cohen, who became Barclays' U.S. strategist. Abby and I briefly overlapped, but she was eventually recruited by Goldman Sachs to become their U.S. strategist.
When I was mulling my Goldman offer, she actually gave me a call and said that I should really consider moving. She said that as a Japan strategist, it's important to have a strong global research platform, and this is something that Goldman clearly had. I decided to make the move since I knew the challenges of working in a more global organization would be better for my career in the long run.
JS: How did you get noticed by senior management?
KM: During the early stages of my career, I did not make a conscious effort to be noticed. But I felt that if I was going to succeed, I needed to become an expert in whatever I did.
One piece of advice I have is to be passionate about what you do and strive for differentiation. I'm known for my "Womenomics" research which I wrote partly because I was passionate about the topic but also because I knew that none of my male competitors would write about this issue. I also wrote a major report on corporate pension underfunding in the 1990s. This was another topic that no other strategists were writing about at the time.
Internally, I had several strong sponsors who went out of their way to introduce me to very senior people at the firm. Those introductions were critical to my visibility within the firm.
JS: You had breast cancer at age 36 and took time off. How much of a mentor was Hank Paulson, who was chief executive officer then?
KM: What he said to me after I told him about my diagnosis will stay with me forever. He told me that the firm would wait for me to recover and that "the greatest enemy of fear is love." Those were the words that kept me at the firm and made me comfortable about taking time off for my treatment, which lasted eight months.
JS: Have you ever wanted to live anywhere else besides Japan?
KM: I have thought of living elsewhere. My husband works here and both our kids were born and raised here, so Japan is our home for now.
JS: What's the biggest setback you've had?
KM: There are times when I wonder, "Why am I covering a country that has been in a prolonged bear market?" At another level, however, I believe that working as a strategist or any other type of research analyst during a bear market is actually better for one's career than working in a bull market since it's easier to differentiate oneself in the former than in the latter.
Another setback was my illness 11 years ago. There was, however, a silver lining in this experience since it allowed me to prioritize my time better and focus on what was important and what was irrelevant. I used to say "yes" to nearly everything, but after my illness, I learned to say "no" more often.
JS: Do you take conference calls after work so as to sync with U.S. time zones?
KM: Yes, but that's been par for the course throughout my career. In a typical week, I may have three to four conference calls with colleagues in New York and London, and given the time difference, this often means the calls happen just when I'm putting my kids to bed or eating dinner. My kids think it's ridiculous when I'm trying to put them to bed with an earphone in my ear, but they've become used to it.
JS: You've written about the need for more women to enter the work force. What will it take for women in finance to advance?
KM: For firms in general, not limited to financial services, you need the top-down diversity commitment that will penetrate the DNA of the organization. If you don't have that, it's very hard to move the needle.
Here in Japan that's particularly the case. Unless the CEO really believes in his heart that this really matters, it's often the case that companies will set up a diversity program staffed by women, check the box and say "we've done diversity." When times are tough, diversity budgets get cut faster than anything else because it's viewed as an extracurricular activity. A lot of organizations still operate this way.
We are one of the few firms that has an on-site day-care center. That didn't come about because management said, "How would you like a day-care center?" It happened because women came together because we noticed we were losing women who couldn't find anyone to take care of their children so they quit. We said to our 1,400 employees, male and female, if we had this would you use it? There was a resounding response and we did it.
In Japan, when you say at a recruiting event that you have a day care facility, a candidate's eyeballs pop out. So it's all about asking for what you want.
Write to Julie Steinberg at Julie.Steinberg@dowjones.com
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