“The majority — 65 percent — of our new recruits are women,” said the head of a foreign multinational I was working with in Japan last week. “We’re just going for the best, and the women are better educated and more mature.” Many foreign multinationals operating in Japan are beginning to understand that gender balancing historically male dominated workforces is proving an effective way to leverage both halves of the university educated talent pool – while shaking up traditional cultures with new, more ‘performance-oriented’ influences.