Kentaro Okuda, CEO, Nomura and also president of the company’s domestic securities business, has publicly apologised for the misconduct of a former employee that has caused grave damage to Nomura’s reputation.
The said employee, who was then part of the Japanese brokerage firm’s wealth-management team, was charged with drugging an elderly client and his wife and setting their house ablaze after stealing some cash.
Following this incident, the company put in place a range of measures to identify any instances of misconduct in the workforce at an early stage. Since then, Nomura has been seeking regular feedback from clients and also insisting on employees seeking approval for personal visits to clients’ houses. Additionally, the company has tried to make its hiring process better and incorporated ethics training into its onboarding process.
This is not the first time that Okuda has taken a pay cut. Earlier, when the company was asked to pay a fine by Japan’s financial regulator for manipulation of the government bond futures market, Okuda had taken 20 per cent pay cut for two months.
Recently, the Tokyo-based brokerage was in the news for announcing measures to reduce costs by $186 million. Okuda himself has been making efforts to restructure the company and improve profits. The company is planning to focus on advancing digitalisation, automating processes and giving the IT infrastructure a makeover.
