Invest Japan Symposium 2008
Invest Japan Symposium | Invest Japan Symposium 2008 - Speaker Bios | | Print | |
Click on speaker names for title and biography.
Patricia M. Haslach was named U.S. Ambassador to Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in June 2007. Prior to this, she served as U.S. Ambassador to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Ms. Haslach previously served as the Director of the Office for Afghanistan, overseeing a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction program, and as Economic Counselor in Islamabad, Pakistan. Other foreign assignments have included service as the Agricultural Attaché in New Delhi, India; Political Officer in the U.S. Mission to the European Union; and Resource Officer in Lagos, Nigeria, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Ms. Haslach is a recipient of the Sinclair Language Award, the Herbert Salzman Award for Excellence in International Economic Performance and the Director General’s Award for Impact and Originality in Reporting. A native of Oregon, Ms. Haslach earned her BA in political science from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington and an MA in international affairs and a certificate on Western Europe from Columbia University. She speaks French, Italian and Indonesian.
Makoto Shiota attended the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Law and the Ecole Nationale d'Adminstration in Paris. In 1982, Mr. Shiota joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, known now as the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). He served as Counselor to Japan's Permanent Delegation the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 1999-2002. He returned to METI as Director of the Trade Policy Bureau's Northeast Asia Division. In 2004, Mr. Shiota was Counselor to the Cabinet Secretariat for the Assistant Chief Cabinet Secretary. He was again assigned to the Trade Policy Bureau as the Director of the Trade Policy Division. In October of the same year, he moved to the Cabinet Secretariat, where he served as Counselor to the Cabinet Affairs Office. In July 2008, Mr. Shiota returned again to the Trade Policy Bureau, this time as the Deputy Director-General for International Regional Policy.
Yasuo Hayashi was educated at the University of Tokyo and Oxford University. He joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1966, later serving as Director-General of the Basic Industry Bureau (1995), the International Trade Policy Bureau (1996) and the Small and Medium Enterprises Agency (1997). He also served as Senior Executive Director of the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (later the Japan Bank for International Cooperation) from 1998 to 2000, and as a Visiting Professor at Saitama University Graduate School of Economic Science from 1999 to 2000, where he lectured on the theory of international financial institutions. Mr. Hayashi joined Mitsui & Co., Ltd. in 2000 as Executive Managing Director, later being named Executive Vice President and also Managing Director of Mitsui & Co., Europe PLC (2004) and Counselor (2006). He was appointed Chairman and CEO of JETRO in April 2007.
Stanley Roth joined Boeing in 2001 as Vice President of International Relations–Asia and took his current position in 2006. Prior to joining Boeing, he served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Asian and Pacific Affairs and as the Director of Research and Studies at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Mr. Roth was chosen in 1996 as the Clinton administration’s envoy to the ASEAN countries concerning Burma. He previously served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council as well as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Pacific Affairs. From 1979 through 1993, Mr. Roth held a number of senior staff positions on Capitol Hill, focusing on Asia-Pacific policy. Mr. Roth received a BA in political science from Brandeis University and an MA in international relations from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Asia Society.
After completing a bachelor’s degree in economics at Stanford University, Dave Johnson pursued a career in public accounting. He spent six years at KPMG Peat Marwick & Co. in San Francisco and London, where he held a number of senior management positions. Mr. Johnson first joined Molex in 1984, serving as Regional Controller for the Far East North Region, Financial Director for New Ventures and Acquisitions and Financial Director for the Far East South Region. In these roles, Mr. Johnson spent five years in Japan and three years in Singapore. In 1996, he joined Sypris Solutions Inc., a diversified provider of technology-based outsourced services and specialty products located in Louisville, Kentucky. At Sypris, Mr. Johnson served as the Vice President, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer. He returned to Molex in 2005 as Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President and Treasurer.
Masachika Suzuki has been Executive President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the University of Shizuoka since 2007. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Suzuki spent over thirty years with the Shizuoka Prefectural Government. From 1981 to 1984, he served as Shizuoka’s Representative in North America. He worked in the Commercial Service & Industrial Promotion Division as well as the Commerce, Labor & Planning Division before being named a Senior Policy Administrator in the Department of Planning. Before becoming the Deputy Governor of Shizuoka in 2001, he served as the Director General of the Commerce & Labor, Planning and General Affairs Departments. Mr. Suzuki has a bachelor’s degree in education from Yokohama National University.
David Baeckelandt is a Principal and the U.S. Business Leader of the Analytics & Research Group ("A&R") for Mercer (services provided by Mercer Investment Consulting, Inc). A&R is responsible for the sales and servicing of the Global Investment Manager Database™ ("GIMD™) and related proprietary investment tools. GIMD™ consists of proprietary investment manager research of more than 19,000 strategies and over 45,000 products by more than 100 consultants and researchers in more than 40 offices around the world. These tools are used internally by Mercer's Investment Consultants and increasingly by major plan sponsors and consultants globally. Clients include the world's largest pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. Mr. Baeckelandt has nearly 20 years of investment experience. Prior to joining Mercer Investment Consulting, Mr. Baeckelandt spent three years investing and raising capital for private placements in Chicago and the Pacific Rim. Earlier, Mr. Baeckelandt spent eight years at William Blair & Co., where he established the first foreign firm in Japan to receive a dual, investment advisory/broker dealer license, and where he managed the firm's Japanese subsidiary. From 1988 to 1994, Mr. Baeckelandt sold investment management and employee benefit trust products for the predecessor banks of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Bank. Earlier, Mr. Baeckelandt worked as an interpreter and translator for a joint venture. Mr. Baeckelandt holds an MA and a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He has published and spoken extensively on Japanese and Chicago financial history (most recently on the historical origins of Japanese Corporate Governance and Chicago's Financial Firsts). Currently Mr. Baeckelandt and a Japanese professor are working on a bilingual study of Japanese financial printing tentatively titled “Japanese Financial Arts”. Mr. Baeckelandt holds and has held board positions with various non-profits and private firms in North America and Asia.
Since joining METI in 1984, Hiroaki Niihara has held a number of positions, including Director for Information Industry & Economy Division and Director for Paper & Cultural-Related Industry Division. Mr. Niihara was made Director of the Corporate System Division in June 2007. Mr. Niihara holds a BA in economics from the University of Tokyo and studied economics at the University of Michigan. He was a Visiting Professor at the Waseda University Law School, a Research Affiliate in Organizational Economics at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a Visiting Fellow in the Economics Department at Harvard University. Mr. Niihara is also a published author, with a number of articles and books on corporate management to his credit.
Kazunari Tomita earned a degree in commerce from Tokyo’s Waseda University and joined the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in 1991. Mr. Tomita was a member of the International Affairs Department from 1995 to 1997, where he helped negotiate with foreign regulators and exchanges to share market information and coordinate market operations. In 2000, Mr. Tomita was assigned to the TSE Derivatives Office, where he worked to formulate regulations for the futures and options markets and developed new derivatives products for listing on the TSE. As the General Manager of the TSE’s New York representative office, Mr. Tomita monitors U.S. regulations governing securities and futures markets and compares U.S. exchange methods with those used by TSE. He is an expert in securities practices in Japan as well as overseas and has a thorough understanding of TSE's member companies internationally.
David Makman is a specialist in patent & intellectual property litigation, with experience in patent infringement cases involving electronics, semiconductor manufacturing, software, and other technologies. He also has intellectual property consulting experience with copyright, trademark, and Internet law. Since 2007, Mr. Makman has expanded his practice to include commercial litigation and corporate governance issues and currently serves as the Chair of the Japan Society of Northern California's Forum on Corporate Governance in Japan. Prior to becoming an attorney, he worked for several years for Matrix KK in Tokyo marketing U.S. software products to Japanese companies. Mr. Makman attended Oberlin College and Duke Law School and is fluent in Japanese. Drew Edwards Drew Edwards, 9 years of investment experience, serves as a Vice President of the firm. Prior to joining ARI, he was an investment professional at Taiyo Pacific Partners, an investment fund backed by CalPERS and W. L. Ross that focuses on Japanese equities. Previous to Taiyo, he worked as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers and as a finance executive in the healthcare industry. Drew holds a B.A. in International Business from Sophia University (Tokyo) and an M.B.A. and J.D. from Northwestern University.
Yasushi Akahoshi became Director of METI’s Americas Division in July 2008, where he is responsible for issues concerning countries in North America and Latin America. From 2004-2007, Mr. Akahoshi served as METI’s Regional Representative for Asia, where he was stationed in Singapore. He previously served as the Director for Policy Planning in the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, Deputy Director of the Multilateral Trade System Department and Director of METI’s Public Relations Office. Mr. Akahoshi joined METI in 1987 and was educated at the University of Tokyo and the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He is married with one son.
Born in Okinawa to a Japanese father and an American mother, Ken G Kabira attended college in the U.S., earning both his BA and MBA from the University of Chicago. Mr. Kabira began his business career at the Inland Steel Company (now part of ArcelorMittal), where he was involved in setting up two joint ventures with Nippon Steel. In 1994, Mr. Kabira joined the Kellogg Company, where he served as the Business Development Director and later as the Marketing Director for Kellogg Japan. Mr. Kabira joined the McDonald’s Corporation in 2003 as Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Japan. His private passions are soccer and bicycle racing, saying, "the worst day racing is better than the best day working."
Born in 1951, George Hisaeda graduated from the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law and received a Special Diploma from Oxford University. Since joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1976, Mr. Hisaeda has held positions of increasing responsibility at the Asian Affairs Bureau, North American Affairs Bureau, Cultural Affairs Bureau, and served as Deputy Press Secretary for the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Overseas, Mr. Hisaeda has been First Secretary at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, Minister at the Embassy in Manila, Deputy Consul General at the Consulate General in New York, and Consul General in Atlanta from 2002 to 2005. Just prior to his arrival in Chicago, he was Administrative Vice President of the Japan Foundation in Tokyo. Mr. Hisaeda is married with two daughters and a son. He enjoys playing the piano and trombone, playing tennis and collecting butterflies. |
|||
- Office Locations:
- Atlanta
- Chicago
- Houston
- Los Angeles
- New York
- San Francisco
© 2010 JETRO All Rights Reserved.