On February 15, the 2nd Annual Josai Japan-China Financial Management Forum was held in room 301 of the university’s Kioicho campus. This conference, with the theme “Global Women Who Change Society,” was planned in conjunction with the forthcoming Josai Executive Program for Women’s Empowerment and Leadership (JEWEL) to be held in Dalian, China this May.

The forum’s three lecturers attracted female audience members from many different fields including business management, human resources, and municipal government.
Recipients of Josai’s Female Leadership Development Award (Mizuta Noriko Fellowship) were also in attendance, expressing their keen interest in this year’s topic.
The forum’s three speakers were as follows:

●　Motoyuki Ono: Director of Josai’s Center for Graduate Studies
　　（former President of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, MEXT Vice-Minister）

Topic：Development of Women-Based Society
Ono’s speech presented policies to address Japan’s current social problems, taken from his days at the Ministry of Education, as well as a proposal for developing a female-based society. This proposal considered a variety of key issues such as female labor, dual-income households, the “NEET” problem, and the growing trend of late marriage.

●　Rin Ooba: Director of c. communications

Topic：Chinese Business from a Female Perspective
Ooba’s lecture, based on her experience working as a translator and interpreter for company management, focused on Chinese society from a Japanese woman’s perspective, inserting many specific examples into her explanation. Through the comparison of Japanese and Chinese culture, Ooba emphasized the importance of self-awareness and communication skills for working in China.

●　Kumi Sakurai: costume designer, JIU Faculty of Media Studies Professor

Topic：Women’s Employment in the Global Community
Professor Sakurai based her lecture on her personal experiences working all over the world, her passion for her vocation, and her work doing costume design for the French opera. Through her experience working cooperatively with people from diverse backgrounds in the costume design process, Prof. Sakurai explained the challenge of a working in an environment with employees from different cultures and nationalities as well as the benefit of exposure to different cultural perspectives.

Coming from very different backgrounds and experiences and discussing a variety of different issues, one thing that the speakers shared was their emphasis on communication and enthusiasm for reaching your personal goal. For their part, the over fifty attendees expressed their enthusiasm by listening attentively throughout the course of the 2 and ½ hour lecture.