At age 74, Yoshiko Shinohara is a towering figure in Japanese business. She has created a wealth of job opportunities, including many for women, by founding the temporary-staffing agency Tempstaff and lobbying to strike down laws that stifled the temp industry. Tempstaff now has approximately 3,300 employees and is a public company. For the past nine years, Shinohara has been on Fortune’s list of the 50 most powerful women in global business. It all started, she told Harvard Business School’s Anthony J. Mayo and Mayuka Yamazaki, with a personal choice she made when she was young. What was it that set you on your entrepreneurial path? Soon after my wedding, I realized that I would rather not be married, that this was not the right person for me. So I decided I had better divorce as soon as possible, a decision that my mother and brother were very angry about. After the divorce, I said, “I have to do something with myself.” At the time, most women in Japan were relegated to boring jobs such as serving tea, and unlike my mother, who was a midwife, I did not have special skills to live as a professional. So I felt I had to leave Japan. I went to Europe and eventually to Australia, where I saw women working as temps, which is how I learned about temping. Mistakes are the sea of opportunity. Why did you decide to start a temping firm? When I came back to Japan, in 1973, none of the job prospects interested me. I remembered the temping I had encountered in Australia and decided to start my own firm. I launched the company without taking it too seriously. However, I soon ran into opposition from the Ministry of Labor. Lifetime employment was the norm in Japan, and temping by private companies was banned under law, so I was often summoned by the ministry. I couldn’t understand why it was illegal to provide temporary employees to companies that desperately needed them. I used to say to myself: “I wonder what it’s like in jail. How big are the rooms? Is there a toilet or a window?” Subsequently, after I spent years lobbying alongside other temp agencies, the law was changed. Lifetime employment was the norm in Japan, and temping by private companies was banned, so I was often summoned by the Ministry of Labor. Why did you bring men into your once all-female company? Sales growth was slowing. Tempstaff was a women’s company because all temps were female in the early days, and our firm’s managers were drawn from the ranks of former temps. Japanese female executives are somewhat different now, but back then, they weren’t always willing to go out and seek new business. They tended to take more of a defensive posture, protecting the company’s gains rather than moving forward. That is not healthy. So in 1988, I said, “How about if we put some men in here?” The managers said, “No, thank you, we don’t need any of those creatures.” But we did need them. A branch happened to hire a man as a part-timer, and wow, did sales increase! That was the turning point. The trick was achieving the right mix of men and women. We now have 60% women. But I wish there were more women in top positions. In Japan, the child care industry is inadequate, so women with children must stay home, and that makes it hard to change the ratio. Were the obstacles you faced in starting a business greater because you are a woman? People often ask me that. My answer is “How would I know? I have never been a man.” Starting a business is always difficult.
