About

When Mitsuro Claire Chino became executive officer in 2013, she was not only Itochu’s youngest employee to do so, but the first woman to reach executive level in any of Japan’s trading houses. Now in her fourteenth year at the company, Chino has championed women’s professional advancement within the nation’s notoriously male-dominated corporate culture. In 2004, she instigated extensive diversity initiatives at the company, contributing to a rise in its female employees from 2% in 2003 to 9% in 2012. ‘I think that as I’m the first female head of legal for the company, my female colleagues are more comfortable as a result of my presence,’ Chino observes. ‘I was able to make the department very gender neutral’. Rated as ‘outstanding’ and ‘an excellent in-house counsel’ by the firms she instructs, Chino’s recent achievements include leading Itochu’s $1bn tie up with Thailand’s CP Group, completed in July 2014. ‘I’ve been able to work on quite a number of very high-profile projects – that’s very satisfying,’ Chino says. ‘I’ve also been able to contribute to non-legal aspects of the business’. She began her career in private practice in the US, where she rose to partnership, before taking the decision to return to Japan and join Itochu in 2000. ‘People thought I was crazy,’ Chino recalls,‘but what really appealed to me was working for a trading company’. As the first lateral hire into the legal department at a company where most people spent their entire careers, she says she had to work hard to makes contacts and gain the appropriate visibility, and with it information, to effectively lead the department. At the same time, Chino believes the unique perspective she obtained from her private practice background has been a real advantage. ‘I think when you are in private practice, you really look at your clients as your clients. To serve them and stay competitive, you have to be creative’. She adds: ‘I have been very vocal with colleagues that our vision is to be a practical legal department which moves business forwards’. Chino is active with the Inter-Pacific Bar Association and lectures at Keio Law School and Hitotsubashi Business School.