Alumni Award Finalist

Maco Yoshioka

Founder/CEO, MadreBonita

Tokyo, Japan
Cohort: ETIC, Tokyo, 2013

Maco Yoshioka is the founder and CEO of MadreBonita, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting families after childbirth. MadreBonita provides postpartum fitness programs for new mothers to recover physical strength and mental stability. Seventy classes are held in 20 prefectures throughout Japan by certified trainers. Over 55,000 mothers participated for the past decade. MadreBonita also focuses on research on postpartum issues which had long been a blind spot of maternal healthcare in Japan. Maco developed the postpartum fitness program in 1998 combining her experience of childbirth and her expertise in sports science. The program received great appreciation not only from mothers but also from fathers, receiving praise that it is transformative. Maco believes that postpartum issues, including postpartum depression, relationship stress, child abuse, and fewer women returning to the workforce, which are overlooked in society, can be prevented if our society values and supports new mothers and the importance of postpartum health. Maco aims to form a social infrastructure of postpartum care in Japan to make it more accessible to every family. Maco holds a bachelor’s degree in literature at the University of Tokyo. She studied sport science in graduate school at the University of Tokyo.