At the FSA, he served as Director of the Securities Business Division  and Director of the  Banking Business  Division One of the Supervision Bureau, where he was involved in the upgrading of supervision and crisis management in the securities and banking sectors, and also led the planning and promotion of Japan's international financial center concept as Director General of the Strategy Development and Management Bureau and Vice Minister for International Affairs.
　Internationally, as Chairman of the Standing Committee Three of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) (2007-2009), he contributed to the  rule making for the global securities business regulation. He also served as a member of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) ‘s the  Resolution Steering Group and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision(BCBS), where he was involved in stabilizing the international financial system and the Basel Ⅲ negotiations after the Global Financial Crisis.
　He is currently an outside director (member of the Audit and Supervisory Committee) and Chairman of the Board of Directors of SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.
　His interests include classical music and opera and he practices Japanese tea ceremony (Urasenke School). 

Mr. Seiji KIHARA is serving his sixth term as a member of the House of Representatives and is currently the Chairperson of the Election Strategy Committee in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Mr. Kihara was born in 1970 and began his career at the Ministry of Finance in 1993 after graduating from the University of Tokyo with a B.A. in Law. He held numerous positions in the Ministry and studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), receiving his M.A. Mr. Kihara became the first Japanese official to be seconded to Her Majesty’s Treasury in the United Kingdom.
He then left the Ministry in 2005 and ran successfully for a seat in the House of Representatives.
Mr. Kihara later served as the Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs (2013-14), State Minister for Foreign Affairs (2015-16), Deputy Chairperson and Chief Secretary of the LDP Policy Research Council (2017-20), Chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Cabinet (2020), Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary (2021-23), and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on national security affairs and nuclear disarmament / non-proliferation issues (2021-23 (except Aug 2022-Nov 2022)), and Acting Secretary-General of the LDP (as well as the Special Advisor to the Chairperson of the Policy Research Council) (2023-24).
In October 2024, Mr. Kihara was elected for the sixth term in the 50th general election for the House of Representatives. In November, he was appointed as the Chairperson of the Election Strategy Committee in the LDP.

Robert is currently a Senior Advisor at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities, where he has worked since 1998. In addition, he is a Senior Specially Appointed Professor at Tokyo University of Science, where he taught from 2017 to 2022. Outside formal work, he was a commentator on Japan’s nightly business program, World Business Satellite, from 2000 to 2020, and has served on the US-Japan Friendship Commission and as an outside director at Orix Corporation. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and BAs in Economics and in Japanese Studies from Yale. He was an exchange student in Japan in high school. He has published ten books in Japanese, and one in English, and has translated three books from Japanese to English.

Paul-Antoine Thiebot is Head of Sustainability and Impact Advisory for Asia Pacific at Societe Generale, based in Singapore. His teams spread across the Asia Pacific region, focusing on supporting origination and structuring of sustainable finance products, ensuring strong alignment with the Bank’s ESG targets, and scaling up impact-based solutions whilst promoting energy transition and ESG advisory services to support its clients’ sustainability journey.
Paul-Antoine has over 17 years of experience in energy financing and advisory. He began his career at Societe Generale in 2007 in the energy project finance team in Hong Kong and then relocated to London in 2015 where he strengthened the Bank’s leading position in the offshore wind sector. Paul-Antoine has played a leading role on numerous advisory and arranging mandates for oil and gas and renewable projects, including multi-billion USD transactions, to support strategic clients of the Bank across the EMEA and APAC regions.
In 2023, he moved to Singapore to join the Sustainable and Impact Advisory team. Paul-Antoine graduated from HEC Paris with a specialisation in Finance.

Yuki Sano is Managing Director, Head of Tokyo Office, Group Sustainability at Nomura Holdings, Inc. for its sustainability matters including corporate disclosures and data, regulatory and industry advocacy, planning of its own environmental and social contribution activities, among others. He started his career at Japan Airlines and subsequently joined NOMURA in 2008 where he had 13 year experience in Investment Banking in Tokyo and Hong Kong including M&A Advisory, Equity & Debt Capital Markets largely in Industrials & Transport sector, followed by corporate strategy roles at NOMURA’s headquarter since 2021. He has a BA in Law from Tokyo University, and Certified Public Accountant (Washington, US).

Katie is a member of the Regulatory Affairs team for the Asia Pacific region at J.P. Morgan, based in Hong Kong. In her role, Katie is responsible for leading policy engagement and development across the ASEAN. She is also the Asia Pacific policy lead for ESG, Prudential and Data. Katie joined J.P Morgan in 2007 and during this time has covered multiple roles within Operations and Controls in both Australia and Hong Kong.
Katie holds a Bachelor of Finance from the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Mr. Takada has been working as a government official for the Ministry of Finance (MOF) since 1995. He has had a wide range of experience in policy-making at the heart of the government including public finance, tax, trade policies and financial services. During over 20 years of his career he spent 5 years in the UK: study at Cambridge and LSE (1997-99), and secondment to HM Treasury (the UK finance ministry, 2003-06) where he worked on financial regulation, investment market policies and public spending.
In 2009, Mr. Takada became the first staff of the newly created National Policy Unit and worked in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Secretariat as an architect of the new public finance framework and as a private advisor to the Prime Minister. After having held senior positions in the Finance Minister’s Secretariat responsible for policy coordination and public relations of the Ministry, he was seconded to the OECD, Paris, where he served as a Senior Policy Analyst at the Green Finance and Investment team, Environment Directorate, from 2015 to 2018.
After his return to Tokyo in 2018, Mr. Takada worked at several offices in the MOF and other parts of the government including the Climate Change Office at the Cabinet Secretariat (2021). From 2022, Mr. Takada served as the Director for Strategy Development at the Financial Services Agency, responsible for financial market policies including promotion of international financial centres and sustainable finance. From July 2024, Mr. Takada has been seconded to the GX (Green Transformation) Acceleration Agency as its Director. The GX Acceleration Agency is newly launched by the Japanese Government to accelerate decarbonisation and green transformation in Japan and beyond. Alongside his official jobs, in his private capacity, Mr. Takada launched the Green Finance Network Japan (GFNJ) in 2018 as its Secretary General. The GFNJ is an informal network that brings together key players on green finance in Japan from both public and private sectors and provides a platform for collaborating with international stakeholders. Mr. Takada received a Bachelor degree in Law (University of Tokyo), a Master degree in Law (Cambridge University) and an MBA (Imperial College London).

Jenny serves as the Deputy Secretary General of Hong Kong Green Finance Association (HKGFA), where she leads strategic multi-stakeholder engagement across its diverse membership of over 160 institutional firms, encompassing the private and public sectors, regulators and government entities.

Her efforts are focused on advancing Hong Kong’s position as a leading sustainable financial and green tech center. Jenny contributes to the capacity building, data analytics and transition planning workstreams of the Centre for Green and Sustainable Finance under Hong Kong’s Cross Agency Steering Group (CASG), as well as initiatives with the UN-led Financial Centres for Sustainability (FC4S), and as co-convenor for the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Working Group in Hong Kong. Additionally, she serves on the advisory panel for Hong Kong’s Green and Sustainable Fintech Proof-of-Concept Funding Support Scheme, and the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) Industry panel for Hong Kong Green Fintech Map.

Following a two-decade career in investment banking, Jenny transitioned her expertise into sustainability, driven by a desire to create positive impact. She co-founded Development Finance Asia, a platform which provides innovative financial solutions to the Global South, and worked as a consultant, responsible for managing Mercer's Fortune 500 Multinational clients based in Hong Kong, prior to joining HKGFA. Jenny is a life-long learner, dedicated to fostering a sustainable ecosystem, that integrates finance, technology, nature and biodiversity. She holds certifications from the CFA Institute in Climate Risk, Valuation and Investing, CFA Sustainability Investing, and MIT Sloan Management in Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy.

Jenny’s professional background includes regional roles at Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and JPMorgan, where she specialized in equity derivatives and prime brokerage, assisting alternative asset managers in scaling their business, raising capital and accessing financing. She has lived in London, New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Ron serves as the Economic and Financial Counsellor at the British Embassy Tokyo, where he is responsible for deepening economic and financial services cooperation between the UK and Japan, including the annual UK-Japan Financial Dialogue and UK-Japan Financial Regulatory Forum. Recent policy priorities for these dialogues, include international policy coordination, asset management reform, digitalisation and transition finance.

After starting his career in the insurance sector, Ron has close to a decade of experience working on international economic and financial affairs within UK Government, including HM Treasury, Department for International Development and now Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in London, Brasilia, Washington D.C, Hanoi and now Tokyo. In the course of his career, Ron has worked on innovate financing facilities to mobilise private capital for green economic transition and development objectives, working with a range of public and private partners, including IMF, World Bank/ IFC and the ADB.

Ron holds a MSc from the University of Glasgow and LLM from Queen Mary University, London.

Professional career
October 2024 - Ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to Japan
2023 - 2024 Director of Defence, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade
2017 - 2023 Deputy Director, Directorate of European Affairs and International Economic Relations, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs
2016 - 2017 Assistant (Antici) to the Permanent Representative at the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the European Union, Brussels
2014 - 2016 Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the European Union, Brussels
2012 - 2014 Deputy to the Director, Directorate of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
2007 - 2012 Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Luxembourg to the European Union, Brussels
2003 - 2007 Desk officer in charge of security issues, Directorate of Political Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Education
Master in advanced studies in international relations and European law, Faculty of Law, Political Science and Criminology, University of Liège, 2003
Master in history, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of Liège, 2000

Languages
Luxembourgish, French, English, German, Japanese

Naomi Takegoshi joined FinCity.Tokyo in October 2019 after a 25 year long career at the British Embassy in Tokyo where she supported UK companies develop their business in Japan in a wide range of industries (consumer goods, financial services, business services, tech etc) with an aspiration to bring her experiences to contribute to the internationalization of Tokyo. In her work to promote UK financial services and fintech in Japan, she built an extensive network of contacts both in Japan and in the UK. In her work to promote UK financial services and fintech in Japan, she initiated a series of UK delegation of asset managers to visit Tokyo through which over 25 UK firms had been showcased. At FinCity.Tokyo, she leads the initiative to support overseas firms entering Tokyo and has run many seminars and roundtables to showcase Tokyo in various financial hubs.

Daisuke Aranami is the FSI lead and Managing Executive Officer in Microsoft Japan. He assumed his current position in December 2023, and since then, have strongly promoted and supported transformation in Japanese financial institutions through the use of cutting-edge technologies such as generative AI.
Prior to Microsoft, as his first professional career, Daisuke Joined the former Ministry of Home Affairs in 1993. Moved to McKinsey & Company in 2000, where they served as a Partner and Leader of the Financial Industry Group from 2006 to 2010. After leaving McKinsey, Daisuke held positions as CSO and CFO at Tokyo Star Bank, and worked at Bain Capital. From 2013, Daisuke joined Apple and led its entire B2B business in Japan. From 2020, Daisuke served as the Japan Country Manager for the US fintech startup Stripe for three years.

Yotaro Katayama joined Preferred Networks (PFN) as Chief Financial Officer in May 2024. Prior to joining PFN, he was a co-founder and board member at MNTSQ where he lead engineering and finance for the company's legal tech AI SaaS business for 6 years. Following his career at Goldman Sachs's Japan office in 2016, Katayama also co-founded BEDORE, currently renamed as PKSHA Workplace, where he started up a business for general-purpose conversation engine powered by natural language processing technology as a board member. He received his Master's degree in engineering in 2016 and later PhD in engineering in 2023.

Following experience in venture investment and business development in the IT and technology sectors across the United States and Japan at Fujitsu and Mitsui & Co., served as Japan Representative at Globespan Capital Partners and Salesforce Ventures. Joined DNX Ventures in 2015 and assumed the role of Managing Partner & Head of Japan in 2020. Maintains an extensive investment portfolio in SaaS-focused startups, including Sansan, Money Forward, ANDPAD, Kakehashi, DataX, and TechTouch. Additionally focuses on research and policy recommendations regarding corporate venture capital (CVC) and startup governance.

Ryu Hirayama joined the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in January 2025 as Country Representative
for Japan, overseeing strategy, investment, operations, and business performance across LSEG divisions.
Previously, he was Managing Director of APAC Strategic Partnerships at Google, SVP of Corporate
Development and CEO of YJ Capital at Yahoo Japan, VP in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs, and
held roles at the Bank of Japan. Ryu holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Economics
from Waseda University.
Appointed as a Board Member of FinCity.Tokyo in June 2025.

MUFG Bank, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan June 2025 (nominated) Member of the Board of Directors, Managing Executive Officer

Deputy Chief Strategy Officer (Deputy CSO)
In charge of Office of Chairman of Japanese Bankers Association
and Credit Portfolio Management Office

April 2025 to June 2025 Managing Executive Officer

Deputy Chief Strategy Officer (Deputy CSO)
In charge of Office of Chairman of Japanese Bankers Association
and Credit Portfolio Management Office

Feburuary 2025 to April 2025 Managing Executive Officer
Chief Data Officer (CDO)
In charge of Office of Chairman of Japanese Bankers Association
Managing Director, Head of Corporate Planning Division

April 2024 to Feburuary 2025 Executive Officer
Chief Data Officer (CDO)
Managing Director, Head of Corporate Planning Division

June 2022 to April 2024 Executive Officer
Chief Data Officer (CDO)
Managing Director, Head of Corporate Planning Division

April 2022 to June 2022 Chief Data Officer (CDO)

Managing Director, Head of Corporate Planning Division

The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan*
April 1996 Joined The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd., Toranomon Branch
*=One of the Predecessors of MUFG Bank, Ltd.