Nomura banks on Junko Nakagawa

Japanese investment bank Nomura has promoted its co-deputy CFO Junko Nakagawa to the group CFO role, replacing executive managing director Masafumi Nakada.

The first female CFO at the 86-year-old bank, Nakagawa joined Nomura in 1998 and left in 2004 “to accompany her husband on an overseas assignment” before returning four years later, reports Japan Today newspaper.

The role is Nakagawa’s first with a global profile; she is Nomura’s first female executive director and joins former London Stock Exchange chief executive Clara Furse as the only two women on the institution’s 12-strong board. Nakagawa’s co-deputy CFO Shigeki Fujitani remains in that post for the moment.

“The higher echelons of the investment banking business are still dominated by men and it is rare for female bankers to head departments in Asia,” Reuters said of the news.

Judging by her predecessor’s trajectory, her future is promising.