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
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Fast and furious. After President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, Vice President and new candidate Kamala Harris made 100 calls in 10 hours to top Democrats. This is the story of how she took control of the Democratic Party in 24 hours: New York Times
- Female flag bearer. Coco Gauff will be the first tennis player to carry a flag for Team USA at the Olympics opening ceremony. At 20 years old, she will also be the youngest American flag bearer in Olympics history. New York Times
- Bye bye, bipartisan. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) broke off talks about a bipartisan plan that would have stopped insurance companies from charging new mothers childbirth-related expenses. The change of heart occurred as Donald Trump became more serious about choosing Vance as his VP, according to the Washington Post.
- Media meets management. Soros Fund Management acquired a stake in Her Campus Media, a company with media brands for Gen Z consumers. It’s the first outside investor in Her Campus’s 15-year history; it was cofounded by current CEO Stephanie Kaplan Lewis. Axios
- Test drive. Waymo has begun testing a new robotaxi built by Chinese EV brand Zeekr on the roads of San Francisco. Waymo, with co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, first announced its plans for these self-driving ride-hail vehicles in 2021. TechCrunch
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
- JetBlue appointed Eileen McCarthy as general counsel and corporate secretary. Most recently, McCarthy was senior vice president and deputy general counsel at UiPath. Previously, she worked on the legal leadership team at JetBlue.
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise named Jennifer Temple as executive vice president and chief marketing and communications officer. Temple formerly was the company’s chief communications officer.
- Savage X Fenty has made Vanessa Wallace chief marketing officer. Previously, Wallace was head of brand marketing at Nike.
- Zendesk hired Sarah Gavin as chief communications officer. Most recently, Gavin was head of Google Cloud Storytelling and previously worked as senior vice president, global communications and corporate brand lead for Expedia.
- Gupshup appointed Lorrie Norrington to its board of directors. Norrington was previously president of eBay International.
-Lyft president Kristin Sverchek will be leaving the company on Aug. 20. Sverchek has been at Lyft since 2012 and previously served as general counsel and president of business affairs.
ON MY RADAR
The long road to Olympic equality for women Wall Street Journal
Kamala Harris’s economic agenda: What experts say it might look like Fortune
Google CFO Ruth Porat just did her last earnings call—and she had a message about the future of tech Fortune
PARTING WORDS
“I could either give up, do something totally different and forget about my name, or I could keep fighting and believing that someday I could get it back.”
— Chloe Coscarelli, vegan chef and restaurateur, on being pushed out of her business
