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So it's no surprise that Makiko Ono--who on March 24 becomes CEO of Suntory Beverages and Food, part of a conglomerate best known for producing Jim Beam and Maker's Mark--has advice on a post-libation restorative. Worth some $10.4 billion, Suntory is the most valuable company under female leadership in Japan, where less than 1% of the top stratum of listed firms have a woman as CEO. You don't rise to the top of Japan's most venerable whiskey company without the occasional hangover. [Extracted from the article]

When Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister, stepped down in 2020, he hadn't quite achieved what he'd set out to. Those efforts were cut short on July 8 when Abe was killed while campaigning for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ahead of parliamentary elections. And ironically, Kishida may be more successful in pushing through Abe's agenda than Abe would have been. [Extracted from the article]

Twin sisters Anna and Mizuki Nakajima founded their mobile-gaming company coly inc. in 2014 to solve a problem they saw with games in Japan. In February, Mizuki, the president and CEO, and Anna, the vice president, led coly to an initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. But it's not just the narrative-driven games that are different at the Nakajimas' company: 25% of its board members are women, and women fill more than 70% of senior management positions. [Extracted from the article]

Naomi Koshi remembers handing out flyers outside a train station during her second mayoral campaign in 2016, when an older man walked up to her and said, "You are too strong for a woman", and kicked her. But to meet the Keidanren goal, Koshi says, Japan will need about 9,000 new female directors within the decade. The two face different challenges, but Koshi is a role model for Nomura. [Extracted from the article]

"The worst thing that would happen is that the Olympics becomes a superspreading event that goes around the world", says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, who has advised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Japanese health officials on COVID-19 countermeasures. Disruptions in team lineups, and athletes' ability to compete, could plague the Olympics even if athletes abide by the rules. The Olympics and COVID-19 were never going to be compatible. [Extracted from the article]

When TIME sat down with Yuriko Koike in late 2019, Tokyo's governor was exuberant in anticipation of the approaching Olympic and Paralympic Games. Airline travel has cratered, meaning simply getting the 15,490 Olympic and Paralympic athletes from 206 nations and territories to Tokyo is a significant hurdle--let alone the 500,000 spectators originally forecast to cheer on the 339 different events. "This is a high-stakes game for Prime Minister Suga", says Mieko Nakabayashi, a former lawmaker and current professor at Waseda University's School of Social Sciences in Tokyo. In what was touted as a major test, Tokyo hosted its first international sporting event since the pandemic began on Nov. 8, and Yokohama baseball stadium has held games with a near-capacity 30,000 spectators. [Extracted from the article]

Thecoming weeks will determine whether containmentefforts can prevent COVID-19 from morphing intothe "black-swan event" that Alibaba CEO DanielZhang has warned may derail the global economy. According to research firm Capital Economics,COVID-19 will cost the world economy morethan $280 billion in the first quarter of this year. Japan has thesecond highest number of COVID-19 infectionsafter China, with 695 people testing positive forthe virus, most of them on a cruise ship docked inYokohama. [Extracted from the article]