As a dutiful mother of five children, Isuzu Murakami's life was filled with endless domestic tasks to juggle on a daily basis. As Isuzu was completely consumed with nurturing and caring for her children, no thought of life outside her busy home truly existed in her mind, and certainly no thought was given to a potential career.

This took a far different turn, however, when Isuzu's youngest child reached middle school age, allowing her to have more time to herself. Isuzu was already in her 40s when she started to feel an urge to explore options beyond life as a homemaker.

Incidentally, she heard about a newly built shopping mall in her neighborhood that was in need of a drugstore tenant. The timing seemed right. She crammed for an examination to obtain a pharmacist license, passed the exam and used all of her small savings to open a tiny corner store in the mall. Little did she know it would be the beginning of her journey as an entrepreneur who became the owner and operator of one of the largest drugstore chains in western Japan.