13 Facts About Hiroya Masuda

Hiroya Masuda is a Japanese politician, government official, and business executive.

Hiroya Masuda was Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications from August 2007 to September 2008, and has served as the president and CEO of Japan Post Holdings since January 2020.

Hiroya Masuda served as governor of Iwate Prefecture from 1995 to 2007.

Hiroya Masuda implemented a nationwide public relations campaign starting in 2001 that branded Iwate as a slower, "no effort" lifestyle alternative to Tokyo and other major cities.

Japan's postal service was privatized under Hiroya Masuda's watch in October 2007.

Hiroya Masuda was reappointed as Minister of Internal Affairs when Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda reshuffled the cabinet on August 1,2008.

Hiroya Masuda served as chairman of the government's postal privatization committee from 2013 to 2016.

Hiroya Masuda wrote a 2013 article in Chuo Koron magazine arguing that growth in Tokyo was leading to population decay in other regions of Japan, further describing Tokyo as a "population black hole" due to the difficulty of raising children there.

Political and corporate leaders in Japan were jolted by the conclusions of a 2014 book by Hiroya Masuda called Local Extinctions, a detailed report of population changes that used the latest official figures from the National Institution of Population and Social Security Research to show that 896 cities, towns and villages throughout Japan were facing extinction by 2040.

Hiroya Masuda was approached in 2016 by twenty-one of the twenty-three Tokyo ward mayors to run for Governor of Tokyo in the July 2016 election.

The Tokyo branch of the Liberal Democratic Party threw its official support behind Hiroya Masuda, warning members that they would be reprimanded if they supported rival Yuriko Koike.

Hiroya Masuda was appointed as President and CEO of Japan Post Holdings in January 2020 in the wake of a scandal related to improper sales of insurance products.

Hiroya Masuda had previously turned down an offer to head the company in 2019, but said that he decided to accept out of a sense of duty.