Introductions to the Group of Seven leaders scheduled to attend the G7 Summit in Hiroshima from May 19 to 21. (Ages as of May 18)
Britain
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
Sunak, 43, will be making his first visit to Japan since taking office in October. He rose quickly up the political ladder after being first elected to Parliament in 2015, eventually becoming the youngest British prime minister in modern history.
A former treasury chief, Sunak was seen as a safe pair of hands after the brief premiership of Liz Truss, who resigned over a political crisis caused by her economic plans.
In foreign policy, Sunak has suggested a tougher stance on China, but his government stopped short of labeling the world’s second-largest economy as a threat to national security in a defense paper in March.
Seeking to deepen engagement with the fast-growing Indo-Pacific region, his government has ensured Britain’s participation in a trans-Pacific free trade deal that includes Japan among its members.
Sunak hosted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in January when they signed a bilateral defense cooperation agreement aimed at facilitating joint drills.
The appointment of Sunak, whose Indian parents emigrated from East Africa, made him Britain’s first British-Asian prime minister. Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, whose father is billionaire Indian businessman Narayana Murthy, are believed to be the wealthiest couple to ever occupy 10 Downing Street.
Canada
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
For Trudeau, 51, this will be his second time attending a G7 leaders meeting in Japan. He made his G7 debut in 2016, earlier than any of his counterparts, at the Ise-Shima gathering in Mie Prefecture.
First elected to the lower house in 2008, Trudeau became the leader of the Liberal Party in 2013 and was sworn in as prime minister in 2015.
Believing that diversity is Canada’s strength, his first Cabinet was made up of an equal number of men and women, and also included parliamentarians of indigenous descent.
In foreign policy, Trudeau’s government has been taking a tougher stance against China, calling Beijing “an increasingly disruptive global power” in Canada’s new Indo-Pacific Strategy released in November.
The souring bilateral relations were visible when Chinese President Xi Jinping rebuked Trudeau for leaking the content of their bilateral talks at the Group of 20 Summit in Indonesia the same month. The clash was caught on camera.
Trudeau has also been involved in promoting avalanche safety after his younger brother died in an avalanche while skiing in 1998.
Trudeau is married to Sophie Gregoire, a former TV and radio host. His father was also prime minister.
France
President Emmanuel Macron
Macron, 45, will be one of the most familiar faces at the G7 Summit, having entered his second term last year.
Sweeping into power in 2017 as the youngest-ever French president at age 39, Macron has been an active leader on the international stage, trying to flex his diplomatic muscles to resolve Russia’s war in Ukraine by engaging with Russian and Chinese leaders.
Born to two doctors in the northern city of Amiens, Macron studied philosophy and graduated from the country’s elite training school for leaders in French life, the Ecole Nationale d’Administration.
In both the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, Macron beat far-right politician Marine Le Pen. The re-election of the pro-EU president was a relief to Western allies amid concerns that a different outcome could have hobbled the 27-member bloc and broken its united front against Russia over the Ukraine invasion.
An advocate of the EU’s strategic autonomy, Macron recently stirred controversy for calling on Europeans not to be “followers” of either the United States or China and cautioning against being drawn into a crisis over Taiwan.
Macron is a former investment banker and is known as an amateur pianist. His wife Brigitte, 70, was his high school teacher, and they married in 2007.
Germany
Chancellor Olaf Scholz
Scholz will be visiting Japan for the third time since taking office in December 2021, signaling the weight he attaches to Tokyo. Germany hosted the G7 Summit last year.
Scholz, 64, has faced the daunting task of taking over from Angela Merkel’s 16 years of steady rule and has presided over historic changes to Germany’s traditionally pacifist stance in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Scholz has been a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party since he was 17. After graduating university, he worked as a lawyer before becoming a member of the federal parliament in 1998 at age 40, and serving as finance minister of Merkel’s government from 2018.
He clinched the chancellor’s seat following the 2021 general election, even though he was initially seen as a long shot to win.
While pushing to cut Germany’s reliance on Russian energy amid the war in Ukraine, Scholz has worked to reduce his country’s economic dependence on China, in marked contrast to Merkel’s government, which deepened engagement with the world’s second-largest economy.
Germany and Japan have been reinforcing bilateral ties. Scholz and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met in Tokyo in March to hold their first-ever high-level intergovernmental consultations.
Italy
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
Meloni, who chairs a right-wing party, is participating in the G7 Summit after becoming the country’s first female prime minister in October 2022.
When she was 15, Meloni joined the Italian Social Movement, a party established by supporters of wartime leader Benito Mussolini. In 2012, she co-founded the political party Brothers of Italy before being elected its leader in 2014.
Despite being regarded by her critics as a radical and nationalist, Meloni has backed the European Union and NATO on their support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
She visited Kyiv in February for talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is expected to attend the G7 Summit online.
Elected to parliament in 2006, Meloni, then 31, became Italy’s youngest minister in charge of youth affairs in 2008 under the government of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
A native of Rome, Meloni, 46, was raised by her mother after her parents separated. She earned money by working as a babysitter, bartender and waitress during her teen years. She has a daughter with her companion, who is a journalist.
Japan
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida
Kishida is eager to leave a legacy at the G7 Summit, which he will host in his ancestral hometown of Hiroshima, by pitching his vision of a world without nuclear weapons.
The third-generation politician, who was born in Tokyo, lost relatives in the U.S. atomic bombing of the city on Aug. 6, 1945. The accounts he heard about it from his grandmother in Hiroshima motivated him to dedicate his life’s work to pursuing denuclearization.
Kishida, a former foreign minister known as a dovish moderate in Japan’s ruling bloc, played a key role in bringing about the historic visit of then-U.S. President Barack Obama to Hiroshima in 2016. It was the first visit made by a sitting U.S. president to the city and to Peace Memorial Park. Kishida became Japan’s longest-serving foreign minister since the end of the war after serving consecutively for four years and seven months.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine likely to top the agenda at the summit, Kishida made a surprise trip to Kyiv on March 21 amid fears that Moscow might use nuclear weapons against its neighbor.
Kishida, who is known to enjoy a drink and is an avid fan of Nippon Professional Baseball’s Hiroshima Carp, became prime minister in 2021. Soon after taking office, he declared his policy of creating a “new form of capitalism” to promote a fairer distribution of wealth. A graduate of Waseda University, the 65-year-old former banker was elected to the Diet in 1993.
Kishida is married and has three sons. He is said to be responsible for dish-washing and cleaning the bathroom in the family home.
The United States
President Joe Biden
Biden will be making his second visit to Japan since taking office and become the second sitting U.S. president after Barack Obama to pay a visit to the A-bombed city of Hiroshima.
Sworn in as president in 2021, the 80-year-old has been rallying allies and like-minded countries to come together to uphold the rules-based international order amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.
Born in Pennsylvania, Biden made his way from middle-class roots to the Senate, where he served for 36 years. He was vice president under Obama, who was the first Black president in U.S. history.
Biden has frequently been described as a person with compassion and empathy, enduring the personal tragedies of losing his first wife and 1-year-old daughter in a car accident just weeks after he was first elected senator in 1972, and losing his eldest son to cancer in 2015.
At age 78 on the day of his inauguration, Biden became the oldest person ever to assume the office of the presidency. The Democrat recently announced his bid for a second term, setting him up for a potential rematch against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump.
Biden’s favorite treat is ice cream.
The European Council
President Charles Michel
Michel, 47, will visit Hiroshima for the second time since taking up his current post in December 2019, following a visit in May last year during his stay for a regular EU-Japan Summit.
Prior to becoming president of the EU’s key decision-making body, Michel was Belgium’s prime minister, after being sworn in as the country’s youngest-ever leader in 2014, at the age of 38.
With his father having been deputy prime minister and a member of the European Commission, Michel began his political career at a young age, joining a provincial Belgian council at 18. He was first elected to the federal parliament in 1999 and was appointed as development cooperation minister in 2007.
He grew up listening to stories from his parents and grandparents, who experienced the devastating impact of World War II and understood how precious peace and reconciliation are, according to the European Council’s website.
During his visit to Hiroshima last May, Michel said that the city, devastated by the U.S. atomic bombing in 1945, is a “stark reminder” of how urgent the task of ridding the world of nuclear weapons is.
Michel was re-elected last year. He reportedly got married to Amelie Derbaudrenghien in 2021, after postponing their wedding due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The European Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen
Von der Leyen is the first woman to lead the EU’s executive branch. She entered politics late in life and earned the nickname “supermom” after bringing up seven children while working.
Assuming the top job in December 2019, the 64-year-old Belgian-born German politician has been at the helm of the EU as Europe deals with the extraordinary challenges caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite being born to a father who served in a precursor organization to the EU, von der Leyen was a late bloomer in politics, joining the Christian Democratic Union in 1990 and being elected to the state assembly in 2003, during her 40s.
She quickly advanced through the ranks, becoming minister of family affairs in 2005 in Angela Merkel’s Cabinet and the first female German defense minister in 2013.
She has advocated for women’s rights, saying that sexism was behind the “sofagate” incident in Ankara in 2021 when she was left to sit on a nearby sofa, instead of a chair, during a Turkey-EU Summit Meeting that was also attended by European Council President Charles Michel.
Von der Leyen is a qualified medical doctor and speaks German, French and English.