(Bloomberg) -- The Bank of Japan fell further behind its global peers on efforts to promote gender equality as it returned to an all male lineup of executive directors after reshuffling its senior positions. 

Tokiko Shimizu, the central bank’s first and only female director, will be replaced by Kazushige Kamiyama after finishing a four-year term, the BOJ said Monday. All six executive director positions will now be filled by men. 

As Governor Kazuo Ueda and his deputies will stay in place at the top of the bank, the personnel moves are unlikely to impact the BOJ’s monetary policy stance. 

The announcement highlights the central bank’s slow progress on addressing diversity issues in a country where women often struggle to make headway more broadly. The BOJ slipped to 156th on an index of gender balance among central banks released this year. Unlike the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, no woman has ever taken the helm of the BOJ. 

Read more: Japan to Lag Again on Diversity if Women Shut Out of BOJ Race

Shimizu broke the glass ceiling at the BOJ on several occasions, becoming the first woman to take on various senior posts including a branch manager position in 2010. She ranked 56th in Forbes’s rankings of the world’s 100 most powerful women last year, one of only three Japanese on the list. She was last week nominated as an external director at Toyota Industries Corporation, part of the Toyota Group.

Seiichi Shimizu, who is not related to the departing executive, will take over as executive director in charge of international affairs. Takeshi Kato will take charge of the monetary policy and financial markets departments as executive director. 

While declining to give a specific comment on the latest personnel appointments, an official in the BOJ’s public relations section said the central bank was aware of the importance of female empowerment. To that end, the bank includes active hiring and promotion as part of an action plan based on the relevant legislation, the official said.

The BOJ’s nine-member policy board has had only one female representative since the current setup began in 1998. The board positions are largely decided by the government, reducing the scope for the BOJ to address issues such as gender balance.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida chose an all-male leadership triumvirate for the BOJ last year — picking Ueda, an MIT-educated former academic, and deputies Shinichi Uchida and Ryozo Himino for five-year terms. 

The BOJ’s slow progress reflects Japan’s lack of gender balance in positions of power more generally. The nation ranked 125th in a global gender gap report last year by the World Economic Forum. Kishida’s government has set a target of having women take 30% of Japan’s corporate executive positions by 2030.  

Some 17.8% of the BOJ’s management-level jobs were held by women as of March, increasing from 6.3% in 2013, according to the bank. 

While that shows a steady improvement and the bank is hiring more women, a lack of mid-career recruitment compared with other central banks is among the factors limiting progress.

(Adds comment from the central bank)

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