Nomura has launched a fund designed to parachute young executives into Japanese companies whose old owners lack a successor, a looming issue in the country where a third of small and medium-sized businesses are run by people over the age of 60.

In its eagerness to inject fresh blood into the ageing arteries of Japan’s business world, Nomura’s new fund will broaden the qualifications required of the next generation of chief executives, with ambition, hunger and an appetite for risk potentially trumping a formal education.

The rejuvenation venture, which Japan’s largest investment bank launched in partnership with an existing company that specialises in nurturing chief executives, emerged as Fumio Kishida, Japan’s newly installed prime minister, stressed his government’s support for the country’s small and medium-sized businesses.