Three fabulous women I really respect are Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of IMF, Minister of Trade, Mari Pangestu, of Indonesia and Hillary Clinton. I happened to listen to Lagarde’s interview on CBS “60 minutes” last Sunday (”60 minutes” is one of the English audio podcasts I listen to every week.)
Though I have seen her at many conferences including the World Economic Forum and St. Gallen Symposium, learned more personal things during the interview, including her childhood days and how much of an influence her mother was on her. The episode about the job interview at the law firm was interesting and so was her remarks “What matters to me is that I am not the last one” when asked about being the first woman as the Finance Minister of France and as the Managing Director of IMF. Here is the link to her interview.
Another person I respect very much is the Minister of Trade, Mari Pangestu, of Indonesia. I have known her through my work on Competitiveness and have tremendous respect for her competence and dedication.
As I was thinking about other super women in the world, I came across with the discussion on US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s paper in the Foreign Policy magazines. Hillary has a tough job now that the world is becoming so multi-polar and many issues related to foreign policy have emerged in so many locations throughout the world.
Yoko Ishikura is a Professor at Hitotsubashi University ICS in the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy in Japan. She has held positions as a professor at the School of International Politics, Economics and Business of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, as a consultant at McKinsey and Company Inc. Japan and a visiting professor at Darden School.
Professor Ishikura is a consultant to a number of multinational companies and has been a frequent speaker at management conferences, seminars, and workshops throughout the world. She was a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee for the Japanese government and the International Competitiveness Commission for METI. She is currently a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum.
She is the author of Strategic Shift from OR choices to AND paradigm, Building Core Skills of Organization , and the co-author of the following publications: Managing Diversity in the 21st Century, Strategy for Cluster Initiatives in Japan , and Building a Career to the World Class Professionals – all in Japanese. Her books in English include: Asian Advantage, Hitotsubashi on Knowledge Management and Trust and Antitrust in Asian Business Alliances.
Professor Ishikura’s current research interests are focused on global competition, innovation, and knowledge management. She received her BA from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan; MBA from Darden School, University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia; and DBA from Harvard Business School.
