Profile

Chairman, Global Council, The International House of Japan, Inc. / Former Editor-in-Chief, Asahi Shimbu

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Yoichi Funabashi was born in Beijing in 1944. He graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Tokyo and obtained a Doctor of Law. In 1968, he joined The Asahi Shimbun. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. After holding numerous positions including a correspondent in Beijing and Washington DC, American General Bureau Chief, and columnist, he served as Editor-in-Chief of The Asahi Shimbun from 2007 to 2010. He was Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of International Economics (IIE) in the U.S. (1987), and Distinguished Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institute (2005-06). He has been a member of the Advisory Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London (since 2019). In September 2011, he established the independent think tank the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (renamed to the “Asia Pacific Initiative” in 2017) and became Chairman. He has been in current position since July 2022.

Director, Center for Field Epidemic Intelligence, Research and Professional Development National Institute of Infectious Diseases

Tomimasa Sunagawa was born in Okinawa Prefecture. He graduated from the Department of Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus in 1991, and received a Ph.D. (pediatrics) from Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University in 1998. After working experience at Osaka University Hospital (Department of Pediatrics) and Minoh City Hospital, he completed the Field Epidemiology Training Program of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID). After working for the Yokohama Quarantine Station, he became a senior researcher of Division 1 at the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center (IDSC) of NIID in 2002. From 2004 to 2007, he was transferred to the headquarters of the WHO (the department responsible for infectious diseases surveillance and control). Since April 2013 to March 2021, he has been working as the chief of Division 2 (Surveillance and Information Division) at the IDSC of NIID. From April 2021 to date, he has been the director of the Center for Field Epidemic Intelligence, Research and Professional Development.
His areas of specialization are public health, field epidemiology, and infectious disease epidemiology.

Professor, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo / Former Chief Economist, Asian Development Bank

Yasuyuki Sawada was born in Hyogo Prefecture. He graduated from Keio University in 1990 (BA in Economics). After studying at Osaka University and the University of Tokyo, he earned a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University in 1999, and became an Assistant Professor of the University of Tokyo in the same year. In 2012, he became a Professor of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo, and was appointed Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank in 2017 and served there until 2021. He was awarded the Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Prize (2007), the Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize (2009), the Kojima Kiyoshi Prize of the Japanese International Economic Association (2010), and the Ishikawa Prize of the Japanese Economic Association (2011). His co-authored book Jisatsu no Nai Shakai e (Toward a Society without Suicide) won the Nikkei Economic Library Culture Award (2013).
Specialization: development economic, policy experiments & evaluation

President, Hyogo Earthquake Memorial 21st Century Research Institute

Makoto Iokibe graduated from the Faculty of Law, Kyoto University and completed his master’s course at the Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University. After gaining experience in the posts of Associate Professor at Hiroshima University, a visiting scholar at Harvard University and London University, and President of the Japanese Political Science Association, he became a Professor at Kobe University. He also became President of the National Defense Academy in 2006. In 2011, he served as Chairman of the Cabinet Office’s Reconstruction Design Council in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake, and Chairman of the Reconstruction Promotion Committee of the Reconstruction Agency in 2012. Since 2012, he has served as President of the Hyogo Earthquake Memorial 21st Century Research Institute, and as Chancellor of the University of Hyogo since 2018 to 2023, and as Advisor of the Imperial Household Agency since 2022. He was designated as a Person of Cultural Merit. His major publications include Japanese Political and Diplomatic History, U.S. Occupation Policy Toward Japan (awarded the Suntory Academic Prize), The U.S.-Japanese War and the Emergence of Postwar Japan (awarded the Yoshida Shigeru Prize), and The Occupation Era: The Prime Ministers and Rebuilding of Postwar Japan (awarded the Yoshino Sakuzo Prize).