Kayoko Nagatani

EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ Asia-Pacific Class of 2025
Representative Director and President of Kavally Inc., Japan

Kayoko Nagatani is the Representative Director and President of Kavally Inc., a Japanese company in the food and beverage industry. Founded in 2012, Kavally Inc. specializes in managing experiential afternoon tea shops, BBQ store management and online sweet sales. The company also organizes sales events in department stores, stations and commercial facilities, and is involved in spatial and afternoon tea production as well as catering services. 

Kavally’s unique business model targets niche customers, specifically women in their 20s and 30s. It aims to reshape the structure of the food and beverage industry, particularly in the context of gender roles and customer targeting.

Kayoko's entrepreneurial journey began with a desire to redefine the restaurant industry's traditional gender roles. With the rise of social media around 2016, Kayoko, then 26 years, saw an opportunity to create a space where women would want to pay to come, redefining the "Women's Association" and celebrating female patronage, catering to a modern, discerning and niche clientele.

Kayoko's strategic vision for the business involves hiring experienced personnel in each field to improve sales in every department, reduce reliance on store sales and create numerous pillars to expand each department. The business model, while having a limited scale, aims to increase brand value and expand horizontally, with the potential to change the structure of the food and beverage industry.