The following are profiles of leaders who will gather in Hiroshima, western Japan, for the Group of Seven summit on May 19-21.
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Britain - Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
Sunak will be making his first visit to Japan since taking office last October. The 42-year-old rose quickly up the political ladder after being first elected to parliament in 2015, eventually becoming the youngest British prime minister in modern political history.
A former Treasury chief, Sunak was seen as a safe pair of hands after the brief premiership of Liz Truss, who resigned over a political crisis caused by her economic plans.
In foreign policy, Sunak has suggested a tougher stance on China, but his government stopped short of labeling the world's second largest economy as a "threat" to national security in a defense policy paper released in March.
Seeking to deepen engagement with the fast-growing Indo-Pacific region, his government has ensured Britain's participation in a trans-Pacific free trade deal that also includes Japan among its members.
Sunak hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in January when they signed a bilateral defense cooperation agreement aimed at facilitating joint military drills.
The appointment of Sunak, whose Indian parents immigrated to Britain from East Africa, made him the country's first Asian prime minister.
Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, whose father is billionaire Indian businessman Narayana Murthy, are believed to be the wealthiest ever occupants of 10 Downing Street.
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Canada - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
For Trudeau, 51, this will be his second time to attend a G-7 leaders' meeting in Japan. His G-7 summit debut was in 2016, earlier than any of his current counterparts, at the Ise-Shima gathering in central Japan.
First elected as a member of the country's lower house in 2008, Trudeau became the leader of the Liberal Party in 2013, and was sworn in as prime minister in 2015.
Believing that diversity is Canada's strength, his first Cabinet was made up of an equal number of men and women, and also included parliamentarians of indigenous descent.
In foreign policy, Trudeau's government has been taking a tougher stance against China, calling Beijing "an increasingly disruptive global power" in a new Indo-Pacific Strategy released in November last year.
The souring bilateral relations were visible when Chinese President Xi Jinping rebuked Trudeau over media leaks of their bilateral talks during an encounter at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia the same month, captured on camera.
Trudeau has also been involved in promoting avalanche safety after his younger brother died in an avalanche while skiing in 1998.
Trudeau is married to Sophie Gregoire, a former TV and radio host. His father was also prime minister.
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France -- President Emmanuel Macron
Macron, 45, will be one of the most familiar faces at the G-7 summit, having entered his second term in office last year.
Sweeping into power in 2017 as the youngest-ever French president at age 39, Macron has been an active leader on the international stage, trying to flex his diplomatic muscles to resolve Russia's war in Ukraine by engaging with Russian and Chinese leaders.
Born to two doctors in the northern French city of Amiens, Macron studied philosophy and graduated from the country's elite training school for leaders in French life, the Ecole Nationale d'Administration.
In both the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, Macron beat far-right politician Marine Le Pen. The re-election of the pro-European Union president was a relief to Western allies amid concerns that a different outcome could have hobbled the 27-member bloc and broken its united front against Russia over the Ukraine invasion.
An advocate of the EU's strategic autonomy, Macron recently stirred controversy for calling on Europeans not to be "followers" of either the United States or China and cautioning against being drawn into a crisis over Taiwan amid their rivalry.
Macron is a former investment banker and known as an amateur pianist. His wife Brigitte, 70, was his high school teacher, and they married in 2007.
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Germany - Chancellor Olaf Scholz
Scholz will be visiting Japan for the third time since taking office in December 2021, signaling the weight he attaches to the Asian country, and after Germany played G-7 summit host last year.
The 64-year-old has faced the daunting task of taking over from Angela Merkel's 16 years of steady rule and has presided over historic changes to Germany's traditionally pacifist stance in the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Scholz has been a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party since he was 17. After graduating university, he worked as a lawyer before becoming a member of the federal parliament in 1998 at age 40, and serving as finance minister of Merkel's government from 2018.
He clinched the chancellor's seat following the 2021 general election, even though he was initially seen as a long shot to win.
While pushing to cut Germany's reliance on Russian energy amid the war in Ukraine, Scholz has worked to reduce his country's economic dependence on China, in marked contrast to Merkel's government that deepened engagement with the world's second-largest economy.
Germany and Japan are enhancing ties, with Scholz and Kishida meeting in March in Tokyo for the first-ever high-level bilateral intergovernmental consultations.
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Italy - Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
Meloni, who chairs a right-wing political party in Italy, will participate in the G-7 summit in Hiroshima after becoming the country's first female prime minister in October 2022.
When she was 15 years old, Meloni joined the Italian Social Movement, a party established by supporters of wartime leader Benito Mussolini. In 2012, she co-founded the political party called the Brothers of Italy, before being elected as its leader in 2014.
Despite being regarded by her critics as a radical and nationalist, Meloni has backed the EU and NATO in their support of Ukraine, following its invasion by Russia in February 2022.
She visited Kyiv in February 2023 for talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is expected to attend the G-7 summit online.
Elected to parliament in 2006, Meloni became Italy's youngest minister in charge of youth affairs at the age of 31 in 2008 under the government of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
A native of Rome, Meloni, 46, was raised by her mother after her parents separated. She earned money by working as a babysitter, bartender and waitress during her teen years. She has a daughter with her companion, who is a journalist.
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Japan - Prime Minister Fumio Kishida
Kishida is eager to leave a legacy at the G-7 summit he will host in his ancestral hometown of Hiroshima, devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb in 1945, by pitching his vision of a world without nuclear weapons.
The third-generation politician, who was born in Tokyo, lost relatives in the nuclear attack. The accounts he heard about it from his grandmother in Hiroshima motivated him to dedicate his lifework to pursuing denuclearization.
Kishida, a former foreign minister known as a dovish moderate in the ruling bloc, played a key role in realizing then U.S. President Barack Obama's historic visit to Hiroshima in 2016.
With Russia's invasion of Ukraine likely to top the agenda at the Hiroshima summit, Kishida made a surprise trip to Kyiv on March 21, becoming the last of the G-7 leaders to visit the country amid fears that Moscow may use nuclear weapons against its neighbor.
Kishida, known to enjoy a drink and an avid fan of the Hiroshima Carp professional baseball team, became premier in 2021. A graduate of Waseda University, the 65-year-old former banker was elected to parliament in 1993.
He is said to be responsible for dish-washing and cleaning the bathroom in the family home.
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The United States -- President Joe Biden
Biden will make his second visit to Japan since taking office and become the second sitting U.S. president after Obama to travel to Hiroshima.
Sworn in as U.S. president in 2021, the 80-year-old has been rallying allies and like-minded countries to come together to uphold the rules-based international order amid Russia's war in Ukraine and China's growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.
Born in Pennsylvania, Biden made his way from middle-class roots to the Senate, where he served for 36 years. He was vice president under Obama, the first black president in U.S. history.
Biden has frequently been described as a person with compassion and empathy, enduring the personal tragedies of losing his first wife and 1-year-old daughter in a car accident just weeks after he was first elected senator in 1972, and losing his eldest son to cancer in 2015.
At age 78 on the day of his inauguration, Biden became the oldest person ever to assume the U.S. presidency. The Democrat has recently officially announced his bid for a second term, setting him up for a potential rematch against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Biden's favorite treat is ice cream.
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The European Council - President Charles Michel
Michel, 47, will visit Hiroshima for the second time since taking up his current post in December 2019, following a visit to the city last year during his stay in Japan for a regular EU-Japan summit.
Prior to becoming the president of the EU's key decision-making body, Michel was Belgian prime minister, swearing in as the youngest-ever leader of his country in 2014 at age 38.
His father having been Belgian deputy prime minister and a European commissioner, Michel began his political career at a young age, becoming a member of a provincial Belgian council aged 18. He was first elected to the federal parliament in 1999 and was appointed as development cooperation minister in 2007.
He grew up listening to stories from his parents and grandparents, who experienced the devastating impact of World War II and understood how precious peace and reconciliation are, according to the European Council website.
During his visit to Hiroshima in May last year, Michel said that the city is a "stark reminder" of how urgent the task of ridding the world of nuclear weapons is.
Michel was re-elected last year. He reportedly got married to Amelie Derbaudrenghien in 2021, after postponing their wedding due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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The European Commission - President Ursula von der Leyen
Von der Leyen is the first woman to lead the EU's executive branch. She entered politics late in life and earned the nickname "supermom" after bringing up seven children while working.
Assuming the top EU job in December 2019, the 64-year-old Belgian-born German politician has been at the helm as Europe deals with extraordinary challenges amid Russia's war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite being born to a father who served in a precursor organization of the EU, von der Leyen was a late bloomer in politics, joining the Christian Democratic Union in 1990 and elected as state assembly member in 2003, when in her 40s.
She quickly advanced through the ranks, becoming minister of family affairs in 2005 in then German Chancellor Merkel's Cabinet and the first female German defense minister in 2013.
She has advocated women's rights, saying that sexism was behind the "sofagate" incident in Ankara in 2021 when she was left to sit at a nearby sofa, instead of a chair, during a Turkey-EU summit meeting that was also attended by Michel.
Von der Leyen is a qualified medical doctor and speaks German, French and English.
