Sonoko Watanabe is currently Senior Consulting Executive Officer of Nikkei Inc., in charge
of International Partnerships.
Watanabe spent most of her career as a reporter and an editor covering business news
and international news. From 1994 to 1997 she worked as a correspondent in Singapore,
reporting on business news across ASEAN, and from 2006 to 2009 she was Nikkei’s
Shanghai bureau chief. From 2016 to 2019 she was the editor-in-chief of Nikkei Asian
Review (current “Nikkei Asia”). From 2021 to 2023, she was the Managing Director of
Nikkei Group Asia Pte. Ltd. in Singapore.