Photo by The Asahi Shimbun
Photo by The Japan Times

Masataka Watanabe

CEO

Asahi Shimbun

POSITION

CEO

COMPANY

Asahi Shimbun

COUNTRY

Japan

AGE

65 years

Website

Asahi Shimbun

SCENE

Lifestyle & Culture

SOCIAL

Instagram

Twitter

What makes Masataka Watanabe a Global Shaker?

The Asahi Shimbun is one of Japan’s most popular newspapers. The company also owns 25 magazine titles including AERA, Sesame, and Autocar Japan and has a 24.83 percent stake in TV Asahi. Masataka Watanabe was appointed as president and CEO of the news organisation in 2014. Prior to this, he served as the director for Administrative and Legal Compliance Affairs at the media outlet.

One of Japan’s oldest and largest national daily newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun began publication in Osaka as a small-print, four-page illustrated paper that sold for one sen (a hundredth of a yen) a copy. The paper now commands $4.2 billion in revenues.

Masataka Watanabe has led the company to forge alliances with The New York Times and the Dong-A Ilbo, located in the US and South Korea, respectively. In a move to modernise the Japanese news daily and increase its international outlook, he crafted a partnership deal with HuffPost Japan, which now operates under the Shimbun umbrella.

Tags: Asia, journalism

Last updated: May 21, 2019