Director General and Trustees

Director General

Jason James

Jason James has been Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation since October 2011. Having been fascinated by Japan on a choir tour at the age of 13, he chose to read Japanese Studies at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was a double scholar (academic and choral), graduating First Class with Distinction in 1987. Subsequently he worked for many years in the financial industry, mostly specialising in Japanese equities, becoming Head of Research in the Tokyo office of HSBC Securities, and eventually Head of Global Equity Strategy at HSBC in London. From 2007-2011 Mr. James was Director of the British Council in Tokyo, during which time he also served as Chair of the European Union National Institutes of Culture Japan cluster, a Board Member of the Japan-British Society (and Chair of its Awards Committee), and a Board Member of United World Colleges Japan.

Mr James’s interest in Japan is broad, covering the economy, financial markets and tax, as well as Japanese literature and arts, and the relationship between the UK and Japan. Publications range from The Political Economy of Japanese Financial Markets (co-author, Macmillan 1999), to Edmund Blunden and Japan (Asiatic Society, 2010).

Trustees

The Trustees of the Foundation are as follows:

Sir Tim Hitchens, KCVO, CMG – Chair

Sir Tim became Chair of the Foundation in July 2020, taking over from Sir Peter Williams.

In May 2018 he became President of  Wolfson College, Oxford, after having served as Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Summit Unit.

Before that he was Director-General, Economic and Consular at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He has over thirty years of experience as a diplomat, having served in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and France. He  spent three years as Foreign and Commonwealth Office director for Africa, and most recently four years as British Ambassador to Tokyo, up until 2016.

For reference: Sir Tim Hitchens appointed Chair of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation – Daiwa Foundation (dajf.org.uk)

Mr Takashi Hibino –  Vice Chair

Mr Hibino joined Daiwa Securities in 1979. He was posted to London for five years from 1982, and his eldest child was  born in the UK. He became CEO of Daiwa Securities in 2011, and Chairman in 2017.

Mr Stephen Barber

Mr Stephen Barber is an Equity Partner of the Pictet Group, the Geneva-based asset and wealth management group. After graduating from the University of Oxford with an MA in Mathematics and Philosophy, he began a career in investment management. He spent the years 1987-1992 in Japan as Chief Executive of Invesco’s Japanese business. In May 1993 he joined Pictet, where he is now responsible for the company’s external publications, press, advertising, events, branding and digital and visual output. In 2008 Mr Barber established the leading global photography prize, the Prix Pictet, which aims to use the power of photography to communicate messages about sustainability to a global audience. He is also Chairman of Photo London.

Ms Yoko Dochi

Ms Yoko Dochi is Managing Partner, SoftBank Group International. She was previously EMEA Head of Investor Relations for Toyota Motor Corporation from 2001 to 2018, where she supported the main Board as its spokesperson, strategic advisor and gatekeeper in relation to the global investment community. At Toyota, she earned a high reputation for managing complex stakeholder engagement through times of crises, turn-around and challenges from disruptive technologies.  As a former investment banker at World Bank in Washington D.C. and the Bank of Tokyo in Tokyo, Yoko has in-depth knowledge of finance and global capital markets.

She is a graduate of both Oxford University (MPhil in Management Studies) and Tokyo University (German Studies and International Relations).

Mr Keiichi Hayashi

Keiichi Hayashi is a senior counsel in the Litigation Department of Morrison Foerster Law Offices.

He is a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Japan, where he served for almost four years (April 2017–February 2021). Prior to that, he was a senior diplomat with Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he worked for over 40 years. A graduate of the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University, he joined the Ministry in 1974, serving for nearly a decade in the Ministry’s Office of Legal Advisors, which he eventually led. In addition, as a diplomat, he was assigned to seven overseas postings, including as Ambassador of Japan to the United Kingdom (2011–2016) and Ireland (2005–2008).

Mr Yusuke Kawamura

Mr Yusuke Kawamura is Chairperson of the Institute of Glocal Policy Research (IGPR). After graduating from the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Law, Mr. Kawamura joined the investment bank Daiwa Securities, where he worked in the research and corporate strategy divisions. In 2000, he became a Professor in the Graduate School of Economics at Nagasaki University. In 2010, Mr. Kawamura became a Senior Director at the Daiwa Institute of Research, before becoming Deputy Chairman in 2012. In 2020, he founded the IGPR.

Currently, he serves as an advisor to the University of Tokyo’s School of Engineering and is an Independent Director of Canon, DM Mitsui Sugar Holdings, and Toyo Aluminium K.K. He holds a Master’s degree in law from the University of Washington.

Professor Sachiko Kusukawa

Sachiko Kusukawa obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge where she is now Professor of History of Science. She is also a Fellow and the Dean of Trinity College, Cambridge. Her specialism is in early modern European history of science and visual culture. She has held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, Munich, University of Tokyo, and the Max Planck Institute for History of Science, Berlin. In 2014 she was awarded the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society (USA) for her book, Picturing the book of nature: image, text, and argument in sixteenth-century human anatomy and medical botany (2012).

She grew up in Wimbledon, Düsseldorf and Tokyo, and has lived in England since 1987.

Ms Rebecca Salter PRA

Professor Hirotaka Takeuchi

Mr Hirotaka Takeuchi is a Professor at the Harvard Business School and Professor Emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo. Mr Takeuchi has written and co-authored numerous influential publications, including Can Japan Compete?  (M. Porter, Takeuchi & M. Sakakibara, 2000), The Best Practice Revolution (1994, in Japanese) and The Knowledge Creating Company (I. Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995), which won the 1995 ‘Best New Book of the Year’ Award in the Business and Management category from the Association of American Publishers. Prior to his academic career, he worked at McCann-Erickson in Tokyo and San Francisco and at McKinsey & Company in Tokyo. He is a member of a number of committees formed by government agencies and political organisations in Japan, in particular those of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. In addition, he is a member of the planning board of the World Economic Forum.

Dr Victoria Tuke

Dr Victoria Tuke is a former Daiwa Scholar who currently works at the Royal Household. In addition to various roles in the Ministry Of Defence, she previously was Head of Japan, Republic of Korea and Mongolia Team, East Asia Department, Asia Pacific Directorate, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Victoria holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick, where she also completed her undergraduate education. Her doctoral thesis focused on an analysis of Japan’s modern-day foreign policy towards India, and included fellowships at the Institute for Defence and Strategic Analyses in New Delhi, and Waseda University, Tokyo.

Ms Jessie Turnbull

Ms Jessie Turnbull is an RIBA Chartered Architect, and a Registered Architect in the State of New York.  She has ten years of professional experience in London, Tokyo, and New York. She completed her architectural training at Cambridge University in the UK and Princeton University in the United States.

She was awarded the Daiwa Scholarship in 2005 during which time she studied Japanese and undertook her work placement with Atelier Bow-Wow.

Professor Sir Mark Walport