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May 05, 2024
 

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Nao Sano
For Nao Sano's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 26, 2018
Meet the Japanese tech guru who is betting big on the future of drones
The only person in kimono at a recent government meeting on flying cars was Kotaro Chiba, a former online-game executive turned financier of a very specific kind.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 27, 2018
Plowing millions into Uber, Toyota prepares for a future with fewer privately owned cars
Toyota Motor Corp., Asia's biggest carmaker, is preparing for a potential future where people don't buy cars.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 17, 2018
Yoshiaki Murakami, once the scourge of Japan's boardrooms, turns peacemaker with big Idemitsu-Showa Shell Sekiyu win
Yoshiaki Murakami, who once struck fear into Japan's boardrooms and split public opinion with bitter activist battles, is now enjoying rare acclaim from executives and being praised as a peacemaker.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 11, 2018
Despite diversity drive, Japan's carmakers struggle to hire women engineers
Facing the worst labor shortage in decades, Japan's carmakers have seen the light: hire more women.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 21, 2018
'Herbivore' investor Haruhiro Nakano takes on lions of Japanese finance
In a tiny, windowless meeting room high above the streets of Tokyo, Haruhiro Nakano starts to cry. The rail-thin, 54-year-old fund manager, who looks like a faded former J-pop star, has just shared his investing pitch, which sounds so deceptively simple you may not appreciate just how radical it is: Japanese workers, Nakano says, should invest for retirement using the capital markets rather than letting more than $8.6 trillion fester in bank accounts.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 16, 2018
Toyota's only female executive says her mission has always been to 'speak her mind'
Chika Kako is a rarity in Toyota Motor Corp.'s upper echelons.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 19, 2018
Memories of Tohoku tsunami prompt man to create floating car
Hideo Tsurumaki watched the giant tsunami crash onto Japan's northeast coast on March 11, 2011, sweeping away cars as people tried to escape from them.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 5, 2018
Brain waves will make Nissan's car of the future a better ride
The world's biggest carmakers and technology companies are spending billions of dollars to perfect your ability to drive without thinking. But Nissan Motor Co. is taking a different direction — trying to "decode" your thinking so that hands-on driving is more fun.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Oct 11, 2017
Scandals seen shredding Japan Inc.'s once revered image for quality
Kobe Steel Ltd. raises fresh concern about the integrity of Japanese manufacturers after disclosing it falsified data on aluminum used in products ranging from cars to bullet trains.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies / FOCUS
Oct 5, 2017
Carlos Ghosn's protege faces first crisis with 'shocking' Nissan Japan recall
Carlos Ghosn, one of the auto industry's most celebrated turnaround artists, saved Nissan Motor Co. by managing himself out of numerous tight spots. Now his hand-picked successor faces a big test of his own, just six-months into his tenure as Nissan's chief executive officer.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 22, 2017
FSA shakes up asset-management firms with cheap funds to get individuals to move cash into stocks
An outspoken regulator has unleashed an unusual tactic to shake up Japan's asset-management industry.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 31, 2017
How a rice lover's robot revolutionized the modern sushi industry
Kisaku Suzuki, creator of the world's first sushi robot, once ran a company that made candy-wrapping machines. And he was angry.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 24, 2017
Hedge fund crusade stymied as Japan Inc. clings to cross-shareholdings
Hedge fund manager Seth Fischer has a powerful ally as he campaigns for Japanese companies to sell their stakes in each others' businesses: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 16, 2017
Ex-Nomura salesman exiled in Chicago goes hostile at tiny Japan firms
From downtown Chicago, a former Nomura Holdings Inc. salesman is taking activist investing to Japan's smaller listed firms, betting that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's corporate governance overhaul is trickling down to less-covered parts of the market.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 24, 2017
Nomura's India fund approaches ¥400 billion as Japan bets on Modi
The land of Abenomics is betting on "Modinomics."
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 27, 2017
Hiroichi Yagi: An unusual manager defies peers in Japan's ¥97 trillion pension world
In the ¥97 trillion world of Japan Inc. employee pension funds, he's known as the unusual idealist who's long danced to his own tune.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 26, 2017
Why ex-Goldman trader shunned hedge funds for a Japan broker
As the biggest earthquake ever recorded in Japan rocked the Roppongi Hills skyscraper in central Tokyo, Makoto Yamada put on his helmet, dropped to his knees, and traded.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 25, 2017
Maverick Beji Sasaki picks a fight with Fujitsu to push takeovers, turnarounds of undervalued firm
Beji Sasaki, a maverick businessman who first challenged Tokyo's status quo four decades ago, says his bidding war with the $13 billion computer giant Fujitsu Ltd. is just the start of his plan to use takeovers to change Japan Inc.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 21, 2017
Oasis CEO ups pressure on Panasonic for better PanaHome deal
Oasis Management Co.'s Seth Fischer has increased his pressure on Panasonic Corp. to sweeten its offer for listed subsidiary PanaHome Corp., calling the transaction a test case of whether Japan's corporate governance overhaul is working.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 24, 2017
Hedge fund Renaissance picks winner with hot firm V Technology
V Technology Co., a small Japanese supplier to display makers, added a surprising new shareholder last June: Renaissance Technologies.
Japan says Biden's description of nation as xenophobic is 'unfortunate'
The National Diet building in Tokyo
With eye on China, defense chiefs agree to bolster interoperability
From left: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian defense chief Richard Marles, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro hold a joint news conference in Honolulu on Thursday.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces
Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
Japan drops to 70th in press freedom rankings
A businessman reads a newspaper outside a train station in Tokyo.
Traders spooked by intervention risk trim record yen shorts
Traders edged back from record bets on yen weakness this past week, in a period that included a likely bout of intervention by Japan to prop up the currency.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.

Podcast

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[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces
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