Driving Ambition : Japanese Businesswomen Set Course for Success in U.S.

Players at the Tustin Ranch Golf Course may see a lot of Junko Horii during the next couple of weeks as the Japanese businesswoman spends hours at the driving range practicing her swing.

She may look like she’s practicing as if her job depended on it. And it just might.

Later this month, Horii, owner of a small Irvine insurance brokerage, has scheduled a golf game with top executives of several large Japanese companies. The Japanese executives, she knows, are crazy about golf and like to talk shop while out on the links.

So, Horii, 42, is giving herself a crash course in the sport.

“I’m struggling, but I’m playing golf to keep the good relationship I have with my Japanese clients and to get new ones,” she said.

Horii, founder and president of J&A; Insurance Services, is one of a rare breed of Japanese businesswomen in Orange County who have started their own companies. Though few in numbers, their ranks are growing slowly. Akiko Hasegawa, president of the Orange County chapter of the Japan Professional Women’s Network, said her group represents 49 Japanese women professionals, about half of whom run their own companies.

It’s not easy for Japanese businesswomen to strike out on their own. In Japan, where women typically play a support role to men at work and at home, there are still relatively few role models for would-be female entrepreneurs.

The Japanese woman who strives to work her way up the corporate ladder may soon discover that the company--most likely run almost entirely by men--is reluctant to promote her. To better their careers, some of these women came to the United States to study English, often starting out as interpreters and secretaries for Japanese companies. As they gained business experience and learned new skills, some saw opportunities to start their own companies--often dealing in U.S.-Japanese trade.

Maho Fukuda, president of an Irvine trading company, wanted to start a business supplying U.S. machinery parts to Japanese companies. But she found it tough to get her company started in Japan. Most Japanese companies, she said, questioned her understanding of the machine business and preferred dealing with male engineers.

Fukuda eventually decided to start her company in Orange County instead. Founded in 1989, Maho International Co. Ltd. had $100,000 in sales last year supplying machine parts to Japanese manufacturers.

Fujimi Fujimura was a married homemaker in Orange County when she decided to go into business in 1974. Today, she is president of Reynolds Tool Products, a trading company in Brea that sells U.S. aircraft components to Japanese and other foreign companies.

Japanese women who start their own businesses often are dissatisfied with their careers and, in some cases, with their marriages, said Fujimura, now divorced. Often, they want to improve their financial situation, she said.

“If I were in Japan, as a divorced mother of three children and no business experience, I’d end up sweeping the streets of Tokyo and earning minimum wage,” said Fujimura, whose company had sales of $3 million last year.

“But being in the United States, I know the success of my business will depend on my hard work and not my sex,” she said. “It’s been tough, but I enjoyed every bit of being independent.”

Horii’s company provides property and liability insurance and workers’ compensation packages to Japanese companies in the Southland. Her clients include the Pan Pacific Hotel in Anaheim, Kyowa America Corp. in Costa Mesa and Yaohan U.S.A. Inc., the Los Angeles-based Japanese supermarket chain.

“As a woman, she would normally find it very hard to gain the confidence of Japanese companies, which are dominated by Japanese male executives,” said Terry Nagura, administrator at Kyowa America, which manufactures plastic casings for several Japanese-owned TV manufacturers.

“But her extensive knowledge of (U.S. and Japanese) insurance industries has impressed us, and our Japanese executives feel comfortable and confident that she can do a good job,” Nagura said.

Last year, her annual billings were $8 million and she expects them to top $10 million this year.

Horii says that perfecting her golf game is one way to keep her clients happy.

“To me, the insurance business is easy, but learning to play golf is very hard,” she said. “But it’s important that I know it because all my competitors are Japanese men who play golf with Japanese clients.”