Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Tennis player Coco Gauff is Team USA's female flag bearer, Sen. J.D. Vance broke off bipartisan childbirth legislation discussions, and one of Japan's few female CEOs took the job to inspire young women. Have a terrific Thursday.
- At the top. Makiko Ono holds a rare distinction in Japan: She's one of the country's very few female CEOs. Ono leads Suntory Beverage and Food, the Suntory Holdings business that makes drinks including Orangina, Ribena, and Suntory green tea, and is a partner in several joint ventures with PepsiCo.
Suntory Holdings, parent to Ono's company, is also parent to the spirits business behind whiskeys, including Jim Beam. And within the 125-year-old, $20.9 billion holding group, Ono is the first and only female CEO. Her goals are to make Suntory a "more beloved company," especially for consumers outside of Japan and for employees.
"The reality is, yes, there are very few Japanese female CEOs," Ono says. "But for myself, I didn't feel it's a very special thing," she adds. The 64-year-old was chosen for the role because of her long, global career at Suntory businesses. "I just happened to be female," she says.
And yet, Ono has encountered her share of the challenges women often face in Japan's workforce. She was attracted to Suntory in part because of the opportunity to work internationally, yet she was discouraged from working overseas; in the 1980s, Suntory had never sent a female employee to a foreign posting. "It's not discrimination, but the company [worried] about sending a female to some country outside of Japan," she remembers. Eventually, "they accepted it," and she went to France to work for Suntory's local business there, focusing on wine. She was the first Japanese woman Suntory ever sent abroad.
Ono preaches patience. "Sometimes, I leave it to wait several years, until that opportunity will be given," she says. "Younger generations right now, they are maybe not so patient. They may leave the company. It turned out good in my case, not giving up and keeping [up] work."
Indeed, patience has paid off for Ono, who has held roles ranging from marketing for Häagen-Dazs Japan to president of the Orangina brand in France to Suntory Holdings' chief sustainability officer—one of her last stops before her current CEO job.
She says she accepted the role at this stage in her career in part to encourage younger women in Japan's workforce. "We are opening the door so that other young female workers can see more ahead," she says. "The situation is improving" from the days when women were always assigned to "supporting roles" at Japanese businesses, she says, partly thanks to initiatives that require women to be considered for open roles. "What we can do is we can change the mindset of male managers," Ono says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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