Maypro CEO May Yamada-Lifton on Balancing Legacy With the Future of Consumer Health

May Yamada-Lifton brings over 20 years of leadership experience from the pharmaceutical, data science, and finance industries to Maypro Group. Yamada-Lifton holds undergraduate degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Tokyo. She completed her MBA with Honors from Columbia Business School. Before joining Maypro, her career experience included roles at Pfizer, SAS, CSL Behring, Celgene, Credit Suisse, and Health Business Partners. Yamada-Lifton’s extensive experience utilizing data analysis, forecasting, and system automation to optimize organizational purchasing, sales, and performance is critical to her work at Maypro. 

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Health E-Insights (HEI): You came into the nutraceutical arena from a different industry. What challenges have you faced in your role as CEO?

Yamada-Lifton: One of the biggest adjustments for me was realizing just how relationship-driven and long-term focused the nutraceutical industry truly is. In many industries today, business moves at digital speed. In nutraceuticals, trust is still built person-to-person over years, and often decades. That culture of relationship-building is something deeply embedded in Maypro’s DNA. Both our chairman, Steve Yamada, and Maypro ventures president, Dan Lifton, have longstanding relationships throughout the industry and remain highly visible within the trade show and industry community.

What also stood out to me was the tremendous depth of institutional knowledge across this space, particularly around ingredient sourcing, regulatory complexity, formulation science, and supplier partnerships. There is an incredible level of expertise and history within the industry.

At the same time, coming from outside the nutraceutical sector became an advantage. I wasn’t limited by assumptions around how things have always been done. I entered the role asking different types of questions around AI, digital customer journeys, ecommerce behavior, social commerce, data visibility, and how consumers emotionally connect with health products and ingredients.

Today’s consumers are not simply purchasing ingredients. They are buying outcomes, trust, identity, and stories that resonate with their personal health journey. That shift is reshaping the industry in meaningful ways.

As CEO, one of my biggest responsibilities has been balancing respect for Maypro’s legacy and long-standing industry relationships while also ensuring we modernize quickly enough to meet the future of consumer health and wellness.

“Ultimately, the companies that succeed in the future will be those that can combine science, transparency, digital intelligence, and consumer connection in a meaningful way.”

— May Yamada-Lifton, CEO, Maypro

HEI: What are you doing to ensure you grow and develop as a leader?

Yamada-Lifton: I’ve learned that leadership today requires constant evolution. The environment changes too quickly to rely only on past experience.

I spend a lot of time listening to employees, customers, suppliers, younger consumers, digital marketers, and even creators outside our industry. Some of the most important signals about the future aren’t coming from traditional channels anymore.

I also work intentionally on self-awareness. Leadership under pressure can amplify both strengths and weaknesses. You have to continuously examine how you communicate, make decisions, handle conflict, and create clarity during uncertainty.

Another major focus for me is learning how to lead across generations and cultures. At Maypro, we operate across Japan, the U.S., and other international markets, and each market has different expectations around speed, hierarchy, communication, and innovation.

The future leader needs to be globally adaptable, technologically fluent, emotionally intelligent, and resilient enough to navigate ambiguity.

HEI: What might be the biggest industry challenge Maypro may currently be facing?

Yamada-Lifton: I believe the nutraceutical industry is entering a period where differentiation is becoming much more challenging. Consumers are overwhelmed by thousands of products, endless health claims, influencer marketing, and now AI-generated content. At the same time, the barriers to launching a supplement brand have become much lower, creating both opportunity and significant market noise.

For ingredient companies and distributors, the question becomes how do you remain valuable beyond simply supplying ingredients?

At Maypro, we believe the answer is partnership. We work closely with brands to identify emerging trends early, strengthen scientific positioning, accelerate commercialization, and help create meaningful differentiation in the marketplace. As Dan often says, “We bring ingredients to life.”

The ingredients we bring into the Maypro portfolio are intentionally selected to be innovative, clinically researched, and aligned with important consumer health trends or white-space opportunities in the market. Our innovation strategy speaks for itself. After nearly 50 years in the industry, we are proud to have supported many category-leading and award-winning brands.

We are especially excited about growth areas such as women’s health, microbiome science and next-generation biotics, cognitive wellness, and advanced delivery technologies. Our team works closely with brands across all channels to support product ideation, commercialization, and strategies that help them stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

Ultimately, the companies that will succeed in the future are those that create strong ecosystems around science, innovation, and consumer trust, not simply sell ingredients.

HEI: Any new plans for company growth?

Yamada-Lifton: We’re investing heavily in areas where strong science intersects with major consumer health trends. That includes healthy aging, women’s health, stress and resilience, metabolic health, sports performance, cognitive wellness, and longevity/health span.

At the same time, we’re also expanding how we think about commercialization. Historically, ingredient suppliers operated primarily through B2B relationships. Today, understanding the end consumer is more important than ever.

We are increasingly studying areas such as:

• Social commerce behavior
• Creator-led education
• Subscription-based wellness models
• AI-enabled customer experiences
• How digital wellness communities are influencing purchasing behavior and brand loyalty.

Another major priority for us is strengthening global collaboration between Japan, China, India, and the U.S.

Japan brings a long-standing culture of quality, precision manufacturing, and ingredient innovation. The U.S. excels in branding, speed to market, digital marketing, and consumer trend creation. China and India continue to be global powerhouses in manufacturing, R&D, and cost-efficient innovation that help move the industry forward.

When those strengths are aligned effectively, the opportunities become extremely powerful.

For us, growth is not simply about expanding product lines. It’s about building a more globally connected innovation ecosystem that helps our partners bring differentiated, science-backed wellness solutions to market more effectively.

HEI: Are you seeing any significant industry trends, and if so, how is Maypro adapting and capitalizing?

Yamada-Lifton: One of the biggest shifts we’re seeing is that wellness is becoming deeply integrated into how people live and define themselves. Today’s consumers are focused less on simply living longer and more on living better, prioritizing health span, vitality, and aging well throughout every stage of life.

Consumers today are no longer waiting until they become sick to focus on their health. They are proactively looking to optimize energy, cognitive performance, longevity, sleep quality, beauty, stress resilience, metabolic health, and overall quality of life.

Another important trend is the convergence of emotional wellness with physical health. Consumers increasingly understand the connection between stress, burnout, sleep, mood, gut health, immunity, and cognitive performance. These categories are no longer viewed independently. They are becoming part of a much more integrated wellness conversation. We also continue to see growing demand for clinically researched ingredients and greater transparency/sustainability.

AI is another major industry disruptor that will fundamentally reshape how consumers discover products, how brands communicate, and how companies evaluate market opportunities and emerging trends.

At Maypro, we are investing in AI not simply as a tool for efficiency, but as a tool for intelligence. We see significant opportunities for AI to help us better understand customer behavior, accelerate research synthesis, improve communication strategies, identify innovation opportunities earlier, and support more informed decision-making across the business.

Ultimately, the companies that succeed in the future will be those that can combine science, transparency, digital intelligence, and consumer connection in a meaningful way.

HEI: Are there opportunities for Japanese-based ingredient companies to enter the U.S. nutraceutical market?

Yamada-Lifton: First, companies need to understand that U.S. success is rarely driven by science alone.

Successful market entry requires a clear consumer narrative, strong branding, commercialization support, influencer and practitioner education, regulatory readiness, and strategic channel selection for the brand they are targeting.

Second, Japanese companies should think carefully about where they can uniquely win instead of trying to compete broadly where the ingredient might have become commoditized and have a higher requirement for price/data balance.

Areas like longevity, healthy aging, stress adaptation, beauty-from-within, immune health, precision fermentation, and functional food ingredients align naturally with Japanese strengths.

Third, they need partners who understand both cultures. Cross-border business is not just translation, it’s interpretation. Expectations around communication speed, risk tolerance, pricing, marketing investment, and decision-making can differ dramatically.

The companies that succeed are usually the ones willing to adapt while preserving what makes them uniquely Japanese.

HEI: Developing a brand and promoting it is an important marketing strategy. Do you feel Japanese companies understand that?

Yamada-Lifton: I think this is evolving rapidly. Historically, many Japanese companies focused primarily on manufacturing excellence and long-term credibility. The philosophy was often that quality would speak for itself. Today, visibility matters. Consumers are influenced by storytelling, digital experience, community, creators, education, and emotional connection. Even in B2B industries, brand perception affects trust and growth.

What’s exciting is that authenticity itself is becoming valuable. Japanese companies often possess extraordinary craftsmanship, scientific rigor, and purpose-driven cultures. Those qualities can become very powerful brand assets if communicated effectively.

HEI: As CEO, does anything keep you up at night?

Yamada-Lifton: Probably the speed of change. The world is evolving rapidly with AI, shifting consumer expectations, global competition, regulatory complexity, supply chain disruption, and geopolitical uncertainty. The challenge isn’t whether change is coming, it’s whether organizations can adapt quickly enough while staying true to their values.

I also think a great deal about people. How do we help employees grow through uncertainty? How do we preserve trust, relationships, and entrepreneurial thinking as we scale?

And finally, I think about legacy. As Maypro approaches its 50th anniversary, we’re reflecting on what the next 50 years could look like. Will we be helping people live longer, healthier lives? Supporting the well-being of their pets? Perhaps even contributing to human health in ways we can’t yet imagine.

A concept that often guides my thinking is ikigai, the Japanese idea of having a purpose or reason for being. For me, that purpose is clear: to build enduring bridges between science, people, and cultures so that health, opportunity, and purpose can be passed to the next generation.