Tea making and other skills needed by Havard grads

After a merger those who practice the dark art of PR are always keen to emphasise how well things are goings. Staff are settling in nicely and technology is integrating with ease.

However, today's Wall Street Journal has two items which shed a less than rose-tinted glare on the proceedings  between Nomura and the European and Asian operations of Lehman Brothers, which the Asian bank acquired last year.

This week it was announced that Jasjit "Jesse" Bhattal, former chief executive of Lehman's Asian arm, will step down as chairman of Nomura's Asian operations outside of Japan at year end. The WSJ piece seemed to imply that Nomura's senior culture of "Japanese men" had imposed a sort of glass ceiling on top of Bhattal.

Keeping on that theme, the Journal continued with a piece that has started re-appearing on blogs and web sites from Hong Kong to the City.

According to the WSJ:

Japanese brokerage firm Nomura Holdings Inc. kicked off a training session for new hires in April by separating the men and women. The women, including Harvard graduates hired by Lehman Brothers before it collapsed, were taught how to wear their hair, serve tea and choose their wardrobes according to the season, say executives who fielded a complaint about the session.

Would love to hear what the men were taught - the rules of sumo, perhaps?