ast year, Japan’s stock market reached its highest peak in over three decades. This year, observers are optimistic it could go even further. Lazard Asset Management, for one, says now “is an excellent opportunity for investors to re-evaluate their portfolio weightings to Japanese equities, considering the extremely positive longer-term structural changes underway.” One such change lies in how Japanese businesses are being run. A new generation of C-Suite innovators is challenging the status quo and helping to undo decades of entrenched underperformance. Their efforts helped Japan move five places to second on the Asian Corporate Governance Association’s 2023 ranking. Courage is also back in style across the nation’s boardrooms. Management buyouts – where a company’s management team purchases its assets – are accelerating at their fastest pace since the 2008 crisis – so much so that the Financial Times estimates they could be
