Chairman, Alliance Forum Foundation, Group Chairman and CEO, DEFTA Partners,

Former Special Advisor to the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister (2013-2020) , and Former Senior Advisor to the Minister of Finance (2006-2011), Japan.

George Hara founded a fibre optic technology company while studying business administration and engineering at Stanford University's Graduate School.  He subsequently created world-class software, information and communication technology, and life sciences companies.  He advocates ‘Public Interest Capitalism,’ which emphasises the need for fair distribution of profits to employees, business partners, local communities, and other company surroundings. The ‘New Form of Capitalism’ of the Kishida administration is based on Public Interest Capitalism as its theoretical framework.

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George Hara's supplemental material can be found here

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Business editor, The Spectator

​ Martin Vander Weyer has been a contributor to The Spectator, the Daily Telegraph and other national newspapers for the past 30 years, following a first career in investment banking in London, Brussels, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and Hong Kong. During an Academic Visitorship at St Antony’s College, Oxford, in 2020-21, he wrote The Good, the Bad and the Greedy: Why We’ve Lost Faith in Capitalism (Biteback 2021).

Professor of Law and Director, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge

Simon Deakin specialises in labour, corporate and private law, and has carried out research on labour market regulation and corporate governance in a number of countries.  He is co-editor of Corporate Governance and Managerial Reform in Japan (2010, Oxford UP), co-author of Hedge Fund Activism in Japan: The Limits of Shareholder Primacy (2012, Cambridge UP), and is currently researching the relationship of law to machine learning.

Senior Counselor (International), Keizai Koho Center

Atsushi Yamakoshi was educated in Japan, the US and Canada.  He joined Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) in 1981, and worked on Japan’s trade and investment relations with the U.S., Canada and Asia.  He was Director of Chairman’s Office for three consecutive chairmen, and represented Keidanren in Washington DC three times, each for three years.  In 2018 he became Managing Director of Keizai Koho Center, the public relations arm of Keidanren, before assuming his current role in 2022.

Professor of Human Resource Management, Graduate School of Policy and Management, and Director of the Research Institute of STEM Human Resources (RISTEM), Doshisha University, Kyoto.

Yoshifumi Nakata researches strategic human resource management, human resource policy and innovation management. He was acting president of Kyoto Minimum Wage Council, member of METI’s Policy Council for SMEs, and member of Policy Planning Committee of the Cabinet Office. He has also served as an expert advisor to JAW (Confederation of Japan Auto Workers’ Unions), Denki Rengo (Japanese Electrical Electronic and Information Union) and Rengo (Japanese Trade Union Confederation).

Professor and Dean, Osaka School of International Public Policy

Nobuo Akai is author of award-winning books on public economics, public policy and finance, local public finance, urban economics, fiscal consolidation policy and tax policy.  He is currently researching PPP (public-private partnerships), public and private ownership of public goods, and sits on a number of government panels related to these interests, including the Ministry of Finance’s Financial Policy Council and the Cabinet Office’s Tax Deliberation Council.

Professor of Labor Economics and Social Policy, Department of Social Sciences and Family Studies, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo

Nobuko Nagase’s research focuses on labour markets, family life, employment and social policy in Japan. She is principal investigator of The Future of Unpaid Work, a collaboration with the Oxford University Internet Institute, and she led a Science Council of Japan project on the status of women in humanities and social sciences academia.  She has served on various Japanese Governmental Committees, including public pension, gender equality, population estimation, national tax, national statistics, and medical insurance. 

Professor in the Economy and Business of Japan, Director Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford

​Hugh Whittaker is an economic sociologist whose research encompasses Japanese and comparative management, innovation, entrepreneurship, employment and corporate governance.  With three co-authors he recently published Compressed Development: Time and Timing in Economic and Social Development (2020, Oxford UP), and he is currently completing a book about Japan’s emerging digital and green economy.

Professor, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), Institutes for Advanced Study, University of Tokyo

Hiromi Yokoyama has a Ph.D in particle experimental physics.  She does research on science and technology studies and policy, STEM gender research and ethical, legal and social aspects of AI. She is a board member of organizations such as the National Institution of National Colleges of Technology, and Society for the Social Studies of Science and Technology, as well as serving on numerous government advisory committees.

Executive Advisor, Nippon Steel Corporation; former Vice Minister, Ministry of the Environment, Japan

Tokutaro Nakai entered the Ministry of Finance in 1985, and transferred to the Ministry of the Environment after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.  His posts included Director of the Policy Planning Division, Environmental Policy Bureau, Director of the Personnel Division, Minister’s Secretariat, Director-General of the Waste Management and Recycling Department, and Director-General for the Environmental Policy Bureau.  In September 2022 he became Executive Adviser to Nippon Steel Corporation. 

Research Associate, Centre for Business Research, Cambridge University, and Non-executive Director, J-Power

John Buchanan worked as a commercial banker with Lloyds Bank group from 1974 until 1987, then as an investment banker with SG Warburg, Sumitomo Bank, and Daiwa SMBC from 1987 until 2002, specialising in Japan-related mergers and acquisitions. He subsequently gained a Ph.D from Cambridge University, and currently researches and publishes on corporate governance, especially the impact of new governance structures in Japan and lessons from activist hedge fund interventions there. 

Professor at EHESS (Paris), President of Fondation France - Japon de l'EHESS, Researcher at IFRJ-MFJ (Tokyo), International fellow at CIGS

Sébastien Lechevalier is an Economist and Professor at EHESS (Paris), specialised in the Japanese economy and Asian Capitalisms. He has published extensively on various dimensions of the Japanese economy, in comparative perspective, including The Great Transformation of Japanese Capitalism (Routledge, 2014; Iwanami Shoten, 2015). Other research interests include innovation, relations between technologies and society, and inequalities & redistribution.

Director, German Institute for Japanese Studies, and Professor of the Japanese Economy, Munich University (currently on leave)

Franz Waldenberger is editor in chief of Contemporary Japan and co-editor of The Future of Financial Systems in the Digital Age (Springer 2022), The Digital Transformation – Implications for the Social Sciences and the Humanities (DIJ 2020), and Governance, Risk and Financial Impact of Mega Disasters (Springer 2019).  His present research focuses on the Japanese economy, corporate governance and digital transformation.

Professor of Management Studies, Saïd Business School and Professorial Fellow of New College, University of Oxford

Mari Sako has made a significant contribution to the understanding of the Japanese

economy, management and labour. Her main areas of expertise include global business strategy and comparative political economy of business, and her recent research focuses on professionals and professional services. She is past president of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Nissan Chair of Modern Japanese Studies and Warden St Antony’s College, University of Oxford

Roger Goodman researches and publishes on Japanese education and social policy, although he has also written on South Korea and the UK.  A recent book co-authored with Jeremy Breaden is Family-Run Universities in Japan (Oxford UP, 2020).  He is President of the Academy of Social Sciences; and former Head of the Social Science Division, University of Oxford.

Professor in the Sociology of Japanese Society, Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford

Takehiko Kariya has conducted studies of social stratification and social mobility, school-to-work transition, social influences of education policies, and social change in post-war Japan.  He has recently published Education, Equality, and Meritocracy in a Global Age (2020, Teachers College Press), and has published 17 single authored books in Japanese, especially on Japanese higher education and globalisation.