Monthly Meeting
How Serial Entrepreneur Sachiko Maruyama Finds Drive to Stretch Herself
Concentrate on What You Are Good At At our 2018 October Monthly Meeting we welcomed Sachiko Maruyama, a serial entrepreneur and a founder of Global Women’s Association (GWA), to share her insights on stretching yourself and venturing out to the unknown. Sachiko Maruyama started her career in a traditional Japanese company at the beginning of…
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November Monthly Meeting Recap – Leading the Way for Strong Women in the Corporate World
The FEW November Monthly Meeting was a collaborative event organized together with ADIDAS at their headquarters in Roppongi. FEW president Riya Rapp was one of the night’s panelists, along with ReebokONE Ambassador and fitness entrepreneur Erika Yamaguchi, and President of Johnson & Johnson K.K. Mario Stein. FEW programs co-director Jackie Steele moderated the panel. Like…
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September Monthly Meeting Recap – Rina Bovrisse
From Prada Epicenter to Court Battle…and How She Persists Rina Bovrisse, a former fashion industry leader who sued her employer – Prada Japan – for discrimination and sexual harassment in 2009 and, eventually, lost her fashion career due that suit, shared her inspiring journey at the FEW Monthly Meeting in September. Now running her own…
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July Monthly Meeting Recap – Ama Divers
Living at the pace of the ocean In July, FEW welcomed professor Anne McDonald from Sophia University to share the stories of Ama divers, female free divers of Japan, during the Monthly Meeting. McDonald has been researching the Ama communities by interviewing the members and taking part in their daily life – even diving into…
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June 2018 Monthly Meeting Recap – Breaking the Mold: Finding New Beginnings at Any Age
By Jackie Steele, FEW Co-Programs Director On June 20 we were delighted to welcome Cynthia Usui, author of 専業主婦が就職するまでにやっておくべき8つのこと (Eight things Full-Time Housewives Should Do Before Entering the Workforce) and Head of Hospitality, Tokyo 2020 Olympics, The Coca-Cola Company, as our guest speaker at the June Monthly meeting entitled, “Breaking the Mold: Finding New Beginnings…
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May 2018 Monthly Meeting Recap: Stronger Together: FEW x FAJ
Who knew that our members had so many hidden talents? The first joint event with FEW and FAJ — the group for French-speaking professional women in Tokyo — on May 15 unveiled quite few surprises as we listened to presentations about their work, projects, lives, experiences and aspirations. Members of both associations are involved in…
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April 2018 Monthly Meeting Recap: Female Pioneers in Law in Japan
At FEW’s monthly meeting in April, we heard from two dynamic women working in law in Tokyo: Naoko Matsuzaki, Director, International Anti-Corruption and Global Intelligence for PwC Japan’s Forensic Services Group, and Catherine O’Connell, Founder and Principal of Catherine O’Connell Law and the first foreign female to set up as a sole legal practitioner in…
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March 2018 Monthly Meeting Recap: Celebrating Women as Change Agents in Post-Disaster Tohoku
In honor of International Women’s month and the 7th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, we welcomed Megumi Ishimoto, Executive Director of NPO Women’s Eye, and Dr. Jackie F. Steele, a political scientist at the University of Tokyo, to share the stories and challenges of the amazing women change agents in post-disaster Tohoku. Neither…
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February Meeting Recap: Survivor – How to Overcome Adversity
You never know where life is going to take you. That was the message from our February guest speaker, Maxine Van-Cliffe Arakawa, who has had a decades-long career as a fashion stylist, make-up artist, and fashion show director in New York and Japan. She shared her personal experiences dealing with bi-polar disorder and gave her candid advice to…
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January Meeting Recap: Reinvigoration & Reinvention: Color Your Life
Maud Janssen always has had a passion for clothes, shoes, accessories & make up, and making others beautiful. When she moved to Italy in 1999 she thought she had style, but then she started rubbing shoulders with Italian women, and felt like a farmer’s wife. She started to consider the question of how some women,…
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