Ritsuko Tsunoda BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research The buy side says: “Ritsuko works night and day and clearly loves her job.”

“Frequent value-added updates on all her coverage,” in the words of one money manager, help ­Ritsuko ­Tsunoda rise one rung to finish in first place for the first time. The BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research analyst also wins praise for her strong stock calls, such as a June buy on ­Ajinomoto Co., a Tokyo-­based producer of cooking oils, seasonings and sweeteners. ­Tsunoda believed the company’s strategy of cutting costs and diversifying its product offerings would lead to margin improvement, and she was right. In January, Ajinomoto raised its outlook for the fiscal year ended in March, revising operating profit from ¥66 billion to ¥69 billion (up from ¥64 billion in fiscal 2010) and net profit from ¥24 billion to ¥27 billion (up from ¥16.6 billion). By the end of February, the stock had posted gains of 18.4 percent, from ¥793 to ¥939, and led the sector by a very tasty 13.9 percentage points. A graduate of Japan Women’s University, ­Tsunoda began her career as a beverages, food and tobacco analyst at Cazenove & Co. in London in 1997 before moving to Merrill Lynch Japan in April 2000.

Polling and tabulation of data as well as reporting on the sector profiles were completed before the March 11 Tohoku earthquake.