The shacho runs the company. At a large Japanese company the post sits at the top of the ranked directors, above fuku shacho and senmu, and below the kaicho where there is one. The legal authority comes from a different place. The Companies Act knows representative directors, not presidents, and in almost every company the shacho is registered as one, which is why business cards read "representative director and president". In a company with a nominating committee structure, the equivalent role is a representative executive officer.
At traditional employers the shacho was chosen by the outgoing shacho, usually from among long-serving insiders, and the predecessor often moved up to kaicho or adviser. That is changing at listed companies. The Corporate Governance Code asks boards to oversee succession planning and to involve independent directors in appointing the chief executive, and nomination committees have become standard at large listed companies: in July 2025, 91.3% of Prime Market companies had one, 5.1% as a statutory committee and 86.2% as a voluntary one, up from 10.5% of First Section companies in 2015.
Across all companies, most of them small, the president is often the founder or owner, and the population is ageing. Teikoku Databank's survey put the average president's age at 60.8 at the end of 2025, with fewer than 4% of companies changing president that year.
What it means for a foreign employer
- The Japan head of a subsidiary is often called shacho. Locally, clients and staff will treat your country manager as the company's president, whatever their global title. Pick the Japanese and English titles together.
- Shacho is not automatically representative director. If you want the person to have legal signing authority, register it. If you do not, make sure the title does not suggest authority they lack, since outsiders can rely on it.
- A sitting shacho is hard to move. Presidents of Japanese companies, and of other subsidiaries, will expect to stay at the top of an entity, and will ask about reporting line and decision rights before pay.
- Succession matters to candidates. Senior hires ask whether the current Japan head is staying and how the next one will be chosen.
Sources
- Companies Act, Articles 349, 354 and 420.
- Tokyo Stock Exchange, Corporate Governance Code, Principles 4-1 and 4-10.
- Tokyo Stock Exchange, appointment of independent outside directors and establishment of nomination and remuneration committees at listed companies (July 2025).
- Teikoku Databank, nationwide survey of company presidents' ages (2025), published February 2026.