Founder Steve Chang hands the presidency and CEO role to Eva Chen (2005)

A Tokyo-listed company with a Taiwanese chief executive

Trend Micro’s succession can be read as familial in that a founder gave way to a successor from within the family, and yet as a departure from the conventions of Japanese companies of the day in that the person chosen was a non-Japanese professional manager who combined technical depth with negotiating ability. A company headquartered in Japan and listed in Tokyo installing a woman from Taiwan as its chief executive was a choice that carried its multinational origins all the way into the form of its management.

At the same time, one should not overlook the way succession by family ties produced a long concentration around a single leader. Chen’s tenure of more than twenty years brought consistency to the management, but it can also be seen to have deferred the question of handing over to the next generation. Whether a company that has built itself on the idea of gathering people across borders can hold to the same principle at the very top is a question whose answer is only now coming due.