Why this seat is different in Japan
This is three different jobs that share a title. Decide which one you are hiring before you write a word.
- Representative Director (代表取締役). The person is registered at the Legal Affairs Bureau, holds the company seal, signs statutory filings and the 36協定 overtime agreement, and carries personal liability under the Companies Act. A director is usually engaged under a mandate contract (委任契約), not an employment contract. That removes labour-law protection, changes how severance works, and takes the person out of employment insurance. Senior Japanese candidates will ask whether the seat is 取締役 or 従業員 in the first conversation.
- Representative in Japan of a branch (支店). A foreign company operating as a branch must register at least one representative in Japan who lives in Japan. The commercial job is the same, the governance is lighter, and the title is usually 支店長 or Country Manager.
- Business-line head with a country title. The person runs a product line or division, reports to a regional business head, and sits below a Japan CEO who holds the legal seat. No board seat, often an 執行役員 (executive officer) title, which is an employee grade and not a statutory director.
Two more facts shape the search. Director remuneration (役員報酬) must be set as a fixed monthly amount to be deductible for corporate tax, and director bonuses need an advance filing with the tax office. Your HQ compensation model will need translating. And the bilingual pool at this level is small and mostly in its fifties. An age ceiling in the brief removes most of the market and is unlawful to publish.
Purpose of the role
Lead the Japan business as its senior executive and registered representative. Own revenue, margin and headcount, represent the company to customers, distributors, regulators and staff, and carry the Japan voice into regional and global decisions.
Key responsibilities
Commercial leadership
- Set and deliver the annual plan and multi-year strategy for Japan, with full P&L accountability.
- Lead direct sales and the distributor or 代理店 network, including pricing, channel conflict and key-account relationships.
- Read the market and competitors and give regional leadership a Japan view they can act on.
Organisation and people
- Lead the Japan leadership team across sales, marketing, operations, finance and HR, with dotted lines where functions report regionally.
- Build succession for the top three seats and hold the team to a performance culture that survives a Japanese labour-law context.
- Act as employer representative in labour relations, including any union or employee-representative dealings.
Governance and statutory duties
- Fulfil the duties of representative director: board and shareholder resolutions, statutory filings, tax and audit sign-off, and compliance with the Companies Act and industry regulation.
- Own risk, compliance and internal controls locally, aligned with group policy and any parent-company reporting obligations.
Regional and global interface
- Report monthly to the regional leader in English, present at business reviews, and secure investment for Japan.
- Translate group initiatives into a form that works locally without losing their intent.
Candidate profile
Must have
- Ten or more years of commercial leadership with full P&L ownership at country or large business-unit level in a foreign-capital company.
- Experience managing a team of at least 50 to 100, including leaders of leaders.
- A track record of growing revenue in a mature Japanese market through both direct and channel sales.
- Comfort with statutory responsibility, or a clear-eyed understanding of what the representative-director role carries.
Preferred
- Industry adjacency rather than identical industry. B2B services leaders transfer well into industrial and technical businesses and vice versa, and insisting on the same industry can shrink a pool of twenty to a pool of five.
- Experience in an organisation of your size and complexity. A leader from a 2,000-person subsidiary and one from a 40-person subsidiary are different hires.
- Turnaround, integration or post-acquisition experience where relevant.
Language
- Japanese at native or JLPT N1 level. The role deals with staff, customers, auditors and regulators who do not work in English.
- English at business level, able to present to a global executive board and influence decisions in writing.
Decide before you post
- Representative director, branch representative, or business-line head. Write the answer into the JD.
- Mandate contract or employment contract, and what that means for severance and insurance.
- Who evaluates this person: the regional leader, a global business head, or both.
- Which functions report solid-line to Japan and which are dotted. Candidates will test whether the seat has real authority over finance and HR.
- Expat or local hire. An expat without Japanese needs a strong Japanese deputy and the budget for that.
- Compensation structure: fixed monthly director pay, bonus filing, long-term incentive eligibility, retirement allowance (退職金) expectations.
How hard is this hire
Hard. In a recent retained search for an industrial subsidiary, we approached more than 160 executives to produce a shortlist. Candidates who can run a full P&L, manage a leadership team, satisfy the Japanese regulator and present to a European board are known to each other and to every search firm in Tokyo. Expect four to six months from brief to acceptance, and expect the final candidate to have another conversation running. The searches that fail usually do so on scope: HQ wanted a salesperson with a title, and the candidate wanted to run a company.
Interview questions that separate candidates
- Walk me through the P&L you owned. What was in it, what was excluded, and what did you change in the cost base?
- Tell me about a decision where the regional view and the Japan view conflicted. What did you do and what happened?
- Describe your relationship with your finance lead and HR lead. Who did they report to?
- What statutory duties did you carry, and tell me about one filing, audit or inspection you handled personally.
- Which of your direct reports could do your job in two years, and what have you done about it?
