It’s more common in the west than you think - we had a printer loaded with MIRC toner and a SIMM with the CEOs signature for printing checks.

There are different grades of seals for different purposes. The secretary will have the garden-variety "The company has received this shipment" chop; they will not have the "The company has agreed to this contract" chop.

I wonder if they were giving their full official seal? I suppose if you're signing a ton of documents, handing that over might be needed. It would be interesting if there were a system to register certain seals with only some permissions (for example, manage business but not personal assets with a green seal). You could create a document stamped with your most important seal that indicates which seal is permissible for which purpose.

In Japan, the official "hanko" seal with red ink carries the force of a signature, but other seals do not carry as much or any legal weight.

https://www.nippon.com/en/features/jg00077/

That article talks a little bit about a similar system to the one I mentioned, where one seal is used for banking, one for title transactions, etc. Something like that but more customizable could be pretty useful.

in western companies, executive assistants very often have the exact same ability, up to and including signed full power of attorneys for executing on the ceo’s life where work blends into personal life.

i’m not surprised at this at all.

in the western context many executive assistants end up being appointed the executor of the ceo’s estate / will as a matter of business continuity.