Mitsuko Tottori

Mitsuko Tottori first joined Japan Airlines—the airline she now leads as its first-ever woman CEO—as a flight attendant. JAL posted revenue of 2 trillion yen ($12.9 billion) in the 2025 fiscal year ended March, up 9.1%, while net profit rose 29% to a record 137.6 billion yen ($880 million). Tottori is refreshing the fleet with Airbus A350s and Boeing 787s and expanding low-cost carrier Zipair across North America and Asia. But Tottori now faces a crisis involving alcohol violations from JAL crew; in June, she took a 30% pay cut for two months in response to the scandal, and said she'd "put my job on the line" over fixing the problem.