Another 10%: Nissan hits goal on female managers

Nissan Motor Co. has achieved yet another 10 percent goal set by former CEO Carlos Ghosn, this time on gender diversity.

One out of every 10 management-level positions at Nissan in Japan is held by a woman as of this month, up from fewer than two out of every 100 in 2004, the company said.

Nissan has been working on its gender discrepancy since 2004, when the company opened its Diversity Development Office. At the time, there were only 37 female managers out of 2,650, or 1.4 percent.

In 2015, Ghosn said that a 10 percent female managerial force was conceivable by 2017. Nissan's tally now is 279 female managers, or 10.1 percent of all managerial positions. The total includes nine general managers in r&d and manufacturing vs. zero in 2004. One in eight female employees now holds a management-level job.

Nissan is well ahead of the average for automakers in Japan. Across the transportation machinery manufacturing industry, women held 1.3 percent, on average, of management posts, according to a study released last June.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe introduced "womenomics" -- an economic plan centered on increasing women in leadership roles -- in 2013 to rejuvenate the country's economy.