Matsui, who left Goldman Sachs Group Inc. at the end of 2020, has teamed up with three other experienced female financial executives to build a fund The MPower Partners Fund, a rarity in Japan for its female leadership, will seek to secure high returns while imbuing startups. That aims to invest $ 150 million in sectors including health care, fintech, next-generation work and education, as well as the environment. With environmental, social and governance values, Matsui said.
“Our thesis is that for Japanese startups to really go global and to scale, one of the missing links is actually ESG,” she said in an interview last week. “We believe strongly that integrating ESG into their business strategies, good companies can become. . great companies and sustainably growing companies of the future. ”
Credited with coining the term “Womenomics,” Matsui published a series of reports over 20 years detailing the economic benefits of empowering women, as Japan's labor force ages and shrinks. While former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe espoused her ideas, the country fell well short of a goal of having women in 30% of management positions by 2020, the year he stepped down. Japan ranked 120th in the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap index for 2021.
Read more here Image: From left to right, Eriko Suzuki, Miwa Seki, Kathy Matsui and Yumiko Murakami. Source: MPower Partners Fund LP
