The top honor at the inaugural Japan edition of the CIO 30 Awards went to Akio Ueda of Kansai Electric Power. The December 2025 results also named winners in Strategy, DX, AI and Talent, plus two Judges’ Special Award recipients and 16 CIO 30 Japan Leadership Award honorees. Here is the full list and how CIO Japan says the awards were judged.
Who won the CIO 30 Awards Japan 2025?
CIO Japan’s results announcement, published December 16, 2025, lists seven principal individual honors: the Grand Prix, four category awards and two Judges’ Special Awards. The separate Leadership Award recognized 16 additional recipients.
Grand Prix and category awards
| Award | Recipient | Role and organization as listed |
|---|---|---|
| CIO Grand Prix | Akio Ueda (上田 晃穂) | Director, IT Strategy Office, and executive officer, Kansai Electric Power |
| Strategy Award | Eiji Hisamoto (久本 英司) | Group director, Information Systems Group, Hoshino Resorts |
| Digital Transformation (DX) Award | Akifumi Ogasawara (小笠原暁史) | Executive officer and chief digital officer, Yaoko |
| AI Award | Masaya Mori (森 正弥) | Executive officer and chief AI officer, Hakuhodo DY Holdings |
| Talent Award | Kazuyoshi Kishi (岸 和良) | Executive fellow and digital co-creation officer, Sumitomo Life Insurance |
Judges’ Special Awards
| Award | Recipient | Organization or team |
|---|---|---|
| Judges’ Special Award, Team | Mugen Taiko (太古 無限) | Daihatsu Motor’s Digital Transformation Group |
| Judges’ Special Award, Individual | Taiichi Nomura (野村 泰一) | Executive officer and head of DX Promotion, J. Front Retailing |
CIO 30 Japan Leadership Award
The results announcement names these 16 Leadership Award recipients and their companies:
- Yutaka Yoshida — Iris Ohyama
- Zenichiro Urakami — ITOCHU
- Hiroyuki Owase — Ebara
- Munenobu Hashizume — Kanadevia
- Yuki Yaginuma — KAIGI
- Koshi Torigata — GLOBIS
- Toshiyuki Suzuki — GREE Holdings
- Igori Danshin — Compass Group Japan
- Shuichi Suzuki — Cybozu
- Toshio Kurosawa — U-Cot Infotecno
- Mitsumasa Sugiura — Uzabase
- Yasuyuki Nomizu — Ricoh
- Hajime Suetsugu — Nippon Kayaku
- Takahiko Sugibayashi — McDonald’s Japan
- Hideyasu Chikada — Panasonic Industry
- Yuta Hara — Bengo4.com
What were the categories and judging criteria?
Applicants entered one of four categories: Strategy, DX, AI or Talent. The Grand Prix was selected as the top honor from among those category entries. CIO Japan published four criteria for judging:
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- Creation of business value
- Organizational transformation
- Actual business results
- Effects within and beyond the organization
The listed criteria describe the organizer’s evaluation framework; the results announcement does not publish scores or a recipient-by-recipient explanation of how each criterion was applied.
What does the award recognize?
CIO Japan says the program recognizes CIOs and IT-department leaders whose technology initiatives contribute to business growth, create value and produce business results. Its stated purpose is to publicize those achievements and help recipients strengthen their presence within their organizations and their external credibility. The nomination notice also framed the program as a way to support Japanese companies’ digital competitiveness and provide role models for future CIOs and IT leaders. These are the organizer’s aims, not independently measured outcomes.
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The organizer presented the 2025 edition as the awards’ Japan debut. Its nomination notice described an in-person event on December 12, 2025, with results to be shared in Japan and abroad; the results announcement followed on December 16.
What is known about the awardees’ work?
The award list identifies recipients and their roles, but it does not give a detailed project account or independently measured results for each winner. Two recipient organizations published additional context, which should be understood as their own descriptions.
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Hakuhodo DY Holdings and the AI Award
In its December 16, 2025 announcement, Hakuhodo DY Holdings said it received the AI Award. The company described its human-centered AI work, its Human-Centered AI Institute, established in April 2024, and an AI mentoring program introduced in August 2025. Those details are company-reported context, not an independent assessment of the award’s impact.
GLOBIS and the Leadership Award
GLOBIS announced on December 15, 2025 that it received a Leadership Award. It described its January 2025 “AGI (AI/Global/Innovation)” company policy, an AI Strategy Council and AI features in its education products. GLOBIS also reported that 92% of its employees use AI in daily work; that is the company’s 2025 figure, not an award-wide statistic or independently verified measure.
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Who judged the awards?
CIO Japan’s published panel included:
- Satomi Kiuchi, chair, CIO Kenjin Club
- Satoshi Uchiyama, chair and executive analyst, ITR
- Takanori Yajima, chair, CIO Lounge
- Yuri Mima, professor, Future University Hakodate
- Nobumasa Takeuchi, Foundry/CIO.com Japan editorial director
- Chris Holmes, Foundry editorial director, Asia
- Estelle Quek, Foundry Community Editor, ASEAN CIO
- Cathy O’Sullivan, Foundry editorial director, Australia/New Zealand
- Yogesh Gupta, Foundry editorial director, India & META, Events
Sources and scope
The recipient list, criteria and judging panel are drawn from CIO Japan’s December 16, 2025 results announcement. The organizer also published a nomination announcement, followed by interview pages dated December 22, 2025 and January 22, 2026. Those interview pages link to winner interviews, but their page text does not provide full transcripts, so this article does not attribute unverified project details to individual recipients.
Company context comes from Hakuhodo DY Holdings’ announcement and GLOBIS’s announcement. CIO Japan lists Alibaba Cloud and Zoom as sponsors; sponsorship alone does not establish endorsement of their services.
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