NEW YORK (Kyodo) One of the major lessons Merrill Lynch Japan Securities Co. learned after the drastic restructuring of its retail brokerage business was that "people were key" in returning the firm to profitability, said President Izumi Kobayashi.

"Thinking back on five years' history, we found out that people are the key, that good leadership and teamwork changes directions in times of difficulty," Kobayashi, 47, said in a recent speech at New York's Japan Society.

"And even if the company CEO is just a normal person and pretty young," she said jokingly, "still, having good people, we can recover."