speakers

Ronnie C. Chan, Chairman, Hang Lung Properties Limited
Yang Ho Cho, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Korean Air
C. L. Max Nikias, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of Southern California
Toshiaki Ogasawara, Chairman, The Nifco Group
Adam C. Powell III, Vice Provost for Globalization, University of Southern California

Special Invited Speakers

The Honorable Shinzo Abe, Former Prime Minister of Japan
Bobby Valentine, Field Manager, Chiba Lotte Marines Baseball Club

Adapting to an Aging Society

Eileen Crimmins, Associate Dean of USC Davis School of Gerontology and Edna M. Jones Professor of Gerontology
Gerald C. Davison, Dean and Executive Director, Davis School of Gerontology & Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center
James G. Ellis, Dean, USC Marshall School of Business and Robert R. Dockson Dean's Chair in Business Administration
Timothy E. Feige, Co-President, Prudential International Insurance
Sakie Fukushima, Managing Director, Japan, Korn/Ferry International
Mitsuo Kawato, Director and ATR Fellow, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories
Kathy Lindsay, Internal Communications Manager, Asia, Lehman Brothers
Qingyun Ma, Dean of USC School of Architecture and holder of USC's Della and Harry MacDonald Dean's Chair in Architecture
Jon Pynoos,UPS Foundation Professor of Gerontology, Policy, Planning and Development
Director, USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology
Yoshiyuki Sankai, Cybernics Laboratory (Sankai Lab.), Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba
Stefan Schaal, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and the Neuroscience Program, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Merril Silverstein, Professor, USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology
Shinji Yamasaki, President, Senior Communication Co., Ltd.
Toshiki Yoshimine, Professor and Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery, Osaka University Medical School

Interactive Digital Entertainment

Vander Caballero, Design Director, Electronic Arts Montreal
David Collier, President, Pikkle K.K.
Elizabeth M. Daley, Dean, USC School of Cinematic Arts
Scott S. Fisher, Chair, Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinematic Arts
William J. Ireton, President & Representative Director, Warner Entertainment Japan
Satoru Iseki, Producer, Tokyo
Gen Kanai, Director of Asia Business Development, Mozilla
W. David Marx, Writer and Market Analyst, Chief Editor, mekas.jp
Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Artist, Creative Director, Producer
Yukiko Ogasawara, President and Representative Director of The Japan Times, Limited
Ichiro Otobe, Chief Strategist, Square Enix Co., Ltd.
Robert Pickard, President North Asia, Edelman
Toshi Shioya, Film director/producer/actor/acting trainer, Will Do Co., Ltd.
Jennifer Urban, Clinical Associate Professor, USC Gould School of Law

Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Leslie Lord, Executive Assistant to the Chairman, Nifco, Inc.
Glen S. Fukushima, President and CEO, Airbus Japan K.K.; Senior Vice President, Airbus S.A.S.; Former President, American Chamber of Commerce in Japan
Krisztina Holly, Vice Provost and Executive Director of the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation
Joichi Ito, Co-Founder and Board Member, Digital Garage; Chief Executive Officer, Neoteny; Chairman, Creative Commons; Board Member, Technorati
Leonard Meyer zu Brickwedde, President and CEO, Hypo Real Estate Capital Japan Corporation
Brian Nelson, CEO of ValueCommerce Co., Ltd., Japan
Thierry Portè, President and Chief Executive Officer, Shinsei Bank
Kumi Sato, President, Cosmo Public Relations Corporation
Gerard J. Tellis, Director of the Center for Global Innovation, Neely Chair of American Enterprise, and Professor of Marketing at USC Marshall School of Business
Shuji Tomikawa, General Manager, Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd.
Ernest James Wilson III, Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication and Dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication

Challenges across the Pacific Rim

Ronnie C. Chan, Chairman, Hang Lung Properties Limited
Jim Clifton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Gallup Organization
Yongheng Deng, Associate Professor and Director of Doctoral Program, USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development
Clayton Dube, Associate Director, USC US-China Institute
Robert Alan Feldman, Head of Japanese Economic Research, Morgan Stanley Japan Securities Co., Ltd
Marilyn S. Flynn, Dean, USC School of Social Work
Karen Symms Gallagher, Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean, USC Rossier School of Education
Genevieve Giuliano, Professor and Senior Associate Dean of Research and Technology, USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development
Director, METRANS Transportation Center
Chang Young Jung, President, Yonsei University
Yong-duck Jung, President, The Korea Institute of Public Administration
Seung-Yu Kim, Chairman and CEO of Hana Financial Group
Chen-En Ko, Faculty member of College of Management, National Taiwan University; Chairman of Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research
Jack Knott, C. Irwin and Ione L. Piper Dean and Professor, USC School of Policy, Planning and Development
Dan Lynch, Associate Professor, International Relations, USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Dingli Shen, Professor and Executive Dean of Institute of International Studies, Fudon University
Kin-Ichi Yoshihara, Senior Vice President, Asia Forum Japan
Tom Zearley, Lead Operations Specialist, World Bank, East Asia and Pacific Region

Trianz Sponsor Session

Arvind Bhambri, Associate Professor, Department of Management & Organization, USC Marshall School of Business
Sri Manchala, President and Chief Executive Officer, Trianz

More names to be added. Please check back here as more speakers are confirmed.

The Honorable Shinzo Abe

Former Prime Minister of Japan

Shinzo Abe was born into a distinguished political family. His father was Shintaro Abe, former secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and his grandfather was former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi. Following graduation from the Department of Political Science of the Faculty of Law at Seikei University in 1977, Mr. Abe studied politics at the University of Southern California. On his return to Japan, Mr. Abe began to work at the Kobe Steel Ltd., in New York, Kakogawa, Tokyo and continued there until 1982. He then served as executive assistant to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, private secretary to the chairperson of the LDP General Council, and then as private secretary to the LDP secretary-general. After his father's death in 1991, Mr. Abe organized a network of supporters and established Shinzo Abe supporters' office. In 1993, Mr. Abe received the highest vote count in the Yamaguchi 1st District in his fast run for the House of Representatives. He was appointed to the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, and also served as director of the LDP Social Affairs Division, where he focused on the pension and the social security systems. He has served as deputy chief cabinet secretary from 2000 to 2003 September in the Mori and Koizumi Cabinets. Then he has appointed to the Secretary General of LDP. He was recently re-elected in the general election for a forth term under the 2003 general election.

Mr. Abe, with his sincere personality, has attracted attention from the public. He has been active as a government negotiator on behalf of the families of Japanese abductees who have placed their trust in his efforts.

Arvind Bhambri

Associate Professor, USC Marshall School of Business

Dr. Arvind Bhambri has been on the faculty of the Graduate Business School at the University of Southern California since obtaining his doctorate from the Harvard Business School. He specializes in strategic change, competitive strategy, global business development, and leadership. Before coming to the U.S., Dr. Bhambri was trained as an electrical engineer in India. In addition to USC, Dr. Bhambri has been on the faculty of the Getty Museum Leadership Institute, Bocconi University in Milan, the University of Hawaii’s Advanced Management Program, and the Owner Managed Business Institute in Santa Barbara. During 2000-2002, Dr. Bhambri took a sabbatical from USC to lead strategy and business development at a global web-based supply chain company. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Trianz, Inc., a global provider of consulting and information technology solutions in the U.S., Japan, India, and Europe.

Dr. Bhambri has co-authored three books and more than thirty articles and case studies, including Harvard best-sellers on IBM and Johnson & Johnson. In 1999, Dr. Bhambri was awarded the McKinsey Prize for Best Paper at the Strategic Management Society conference in Berlin. The coauthored paper is titled, "New CEOs and Strategic Change across Industries." He has twice been awarded the “Golden Apple” as Outstanding Teacher in the MBA program at USC. In 2006, he also received the Department of Management and Organization’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. In addition to the McKinsey Prize at the Strategic Management Society, he is a past winner of the Best Paper award in Social Issues at the National Academy of Management. He was a member of the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal from 1990 to 2007 and was recently elected a Representative at Large for the Strategy Process group of the Strategic Management Society for 2007 - 2009.

Vander Caballero

Design Director, Electronic Arts Montreal

Vander Caballero has been a Design Director of Electronic Arts Montreal since its opening in 2004. One of his main focus was to introduce innovation working on the game design process and by introducing fast prototyping. He has also worked in the development of EA's newest original IP "Army of Two" & "Boogie". Before joining the Montreal Studio, Vander worked as an Art Director for the FIFA franchise at EA Vancouver. Vander studied Industrial Design at the "Instituto Europeo de Design", Italy. Upon his arrival in Montreal in 1998 he began to work in Virtual Reality & Architectural Visualization. In 1999, along with Daniel Langlois (Softimage founder), he co-founded the Montréal Studio 4-Elements. There Vander dedicated himself to the development of games¬including 3DO's "Army Men" and Southpeak's "Dukes of Hazard" franchise. Since joining EA Montreal, Vander has been a Chapter Adviser in the IGDA Montréal Chapter.

Ronnie C. Chan

Chairman, Hang Lung Properties Limited

Mr. Ronnie C. Chan is the Chairman of Hang Lung Group Limited and its subsidiary Hang Lung Properties Limited. Both are publicly listed companies in Hong Kong, dealing in real estate and property investment, development and management. Hang Lung has been a leader in Hong Kong’s property market for over forty years, and has been expanding into mainland China for over a decade. For 2007, Hang Lung Properties reported a net profit of US$805 million. Following successes in Shanghai, from 2005 to 2009, Hang Lung plans to invest US$5 billion and build about eighteen world-class commercial complexes in several major Chinese cities, including Tianjin, Shenyang, Jinan and Wuxi. He also co-founded the privately held Morningside group which, in the past two decades, has owned and managed businesses in manufacturing, public transport operations, outdoor advertising, media, healthcare, online game operators, high-tech and biotech investments, developmental capital investments and other venture capital investments around the world. Mr. Chan is Chairman of the Executive Committees of the One Country Two Systems Research Institute and of the Better Hong Kong Foundation. He founded and chairs the China Heritage Fund, which preserves and restores important cultural relics in the mainland, and is an Advisor to the China Development Research Foundation of China's State Council. Internationally, Mr. Chan is a Vice Chairman of the Asia Society and Chairman of its Hong Kong Center, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Committee of 100. He is the Founding Chairman and Chairman Emeritus of the Asia Business Council, a former Chairman of the Hong Kong-United States Business Council, and a former member of the governing board of the World Economic Forum. He served on the governing or advisory bodies of several think tanks including the East-West Center, Pacific Council on International Policy, Eisenhower Fellowships, and The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation. Mr. Chan is a trustee of the University of Southern California, a member of the President’s Council on International Activities at Yale University, and a Court member of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Yang Ho Cho

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Korean Air

Yang-Ho Cho is chairman and chief executive officer of Korean Air, one of Asia's largest airlines and the world’s largest commercial airline cargo carrier.

Mr. Cho was named chairman and CEO of Korean Air in April 1999, having served as President and CEO since 1992. Prior to that, he was executive vice president and chief operating officer of Korean Air. Mr. Cho began working for Korean Air as a manager in the Americas Regional Headquarters in 1974. He worked his way up in the company ranks by continually adding various departments to his overall responsibilities - including maintenance, marketing, purchasing, information systems and corporate planning.

After receiving a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Inha University (Incheon, Korea) in 1975, Mr. Cho received an MBA from USC in 1979, and a doctoral degree in business administration from Inha University in 1988. In 1998, he received an honorary doctorate degree in aviation business administration from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Florida.

Mr. Cho. is also chairman of the Hanjin Group – one of the world's largest transportation conglomerates. He was named to this post in February 2003 after having served as the Group's vice chairman since 1996. He is also the director of various subsidiary companies including Hanjin Shipping, Korea Airport Service (KAS), and HIST.

In addition to his corporate responsibilities, Mr. Cho was elected vice-chairman of The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) in 1996 and has held the title of honorary consulate-general to Ireland in the Republic of Korea since 1995. He was named Chairman of the Korea-French High Level Businessmen's Club in October 2000 and has also served on the Board of Governors for the International Air Transport Association (IATA) since elected in May 2001. He is currently serving as Chairman of the Korea Defense Industry Association since 2004. He has been on the USC Board of Trustees since 1997. He is chairman of the board of trustees at Inha and Hankuk Aviation universities.

Mr. Cho commitment of serving the public with transportation has been widely recognized. In 2004, he received the title of "Commandeur" in the Legion D'Honneur, the highest civilian honor awarded in France. In 2005, Mr. Cho was awarded the title of Mongol's Polaris, the highest civilian honor granted by the government of Mongolia.

Mr. Cho is married, and has one son and two daughters.

Jim Clifton

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Gallup Organization

Jim Clifton is best known in the polling and survey research field for leading the acquisition of The Gallup Organization in 1988, at which time he became CEO of the organization founded by the renowned polling pioneer, Dr. George H. Gallup.

Under Clifton's leadership, Gallup has enjoyed a tenfold increase in its billing volume and has expanded from a predominantly U.S.-based company to a global organization with more than 40 offices in 20 of the world’s largest nations. Gallup is one of the world's most influential institutions and providers of public opinion polling and management consulting.

Clifton is best known in the business world as the creator of The Gallup Path. This metric-based economic model establishes the linkages among human nature in the workplace, customer engagement, and business outcomes. The Gallup Path is integral to the performance management systems in more than 500 companies worldwide and forms the basis of most of Gallup’s total revenues.

Few people care as much as Jim Clifton does about what the world is thinking. His most recent innovation, the Gallup World Poll, is designed to tell the 10 million people who lead, govern, and manage the world what the world’s 6 billion citizens are thinking. Clifton has pledged to continually collect people’s opinions for 100 years in more than 100 countries to determine the general well-being or “soul” of a country, city, or culture. Questions in this ground-breaking project delve into individual and social needs, including food and shelter, safety and security, mental and physical health, education, jobs, economics and finances, transportation, water and air quality, hope and futurism, leadership approval, religion, and war and peace.

Clifton serves as Chairman of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund. He has received honorary degrees from a number of institutions, including a Doctor of Commerce degree from Bellevue University in Nebraska and Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Medgar Evers College in New York and Jackson State University in Mississippi.

Clifton and his wife, Susan, live in Washington, D.C. They have three children, Nicole, Jonathan, and Jackie.

David Collier

President, Pikkle K.K.

David "DC" Collier runs Pikkle, a Tokyo based mobile content provider. Pikkle creates mobile social entertainment - social networks with a game flavor; their unique technology allows components of these sites to be used by other companies - a distributed mobile SNS2.0.

Previously DC led business development for Namco's overseas mobile games division, positioning Namco as one of the most successful of the Japanese publishers overseas. Previous to this DC formed Gamelet.com in San Francisco, one of the first java games providers, which was acquired by PacketVideo corp. prior to their $100 million fund-raising round.

DC has authored three books on digital design, including the self-titled "Collier's Rules". He also started "JGram.org", a community for serious students of Japanese grammar.

Eileen Crimmins

Associate Dean of USC Davis School of Gerontology
Edna M. Jones Professor of Gerontology

Eileen Crimmins, Ph.D. is the Edna M. Jones Professor of Gerontology. Professor Crimmins received her Ph.D. in Demography at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently the director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health. This Center is a unique collaboration between demographers, psychologists, epidemiologists, sociologists, physicians and biologists at USC and UCLA. The purpose of the NIA funded Center is to integrate medical, biological, and epidemiological information to model and predict population health trends and explain health differences.

Professor Crimmins currently is involved in multiple projects internationally and in the U.S. One project is a joint project with researchers at Nihon University. This project compares health and risk factors for persons in Japan and the United States using the Nihon University Japanese Longitudinal Study of Aging. Another project on Ã¬The Role of Biological Factors in Determining Differences in Health by Education and Income Level" is focused on how markers of biological risk can be used to explain the poorer health outcomes of older people with less education and lower incomes. Biological risk includes factors such as high blood pressure, cholesterol, homocysteine, antioxidants, fibrinogen, and CRP.

Involved in numerous professional activities, Professor Crimmins has been a member of the Board of Councilors for the National Center for Health Statistics and Vice-President of the Population Association of America, Chair of the Section on Aging and the Life Course of the American Sociological Association, and Secretary- Treasurer of the Society for the Study of Social Biology. She is a co-investigator of the NIA Sponsored Health and Retirement Survey in the U.S. She is an Associate Editor for a number of journals. She also recently edited several books with a focus on international aging: Determining Health Expectancies, Longer Life and Healthy Aging, Human Longevity, Individual Life Duration, and the Growth of the Oldest-old Population.

Gerald C. Davison

Dean and Executive Director, Davis School of Gerontology & Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center

Gerald C. Davidson is Dean of the USC Davis School of Gerontology and Executive Director of the Andrus Gerontology Center. He is holder of the William and Sylvia Kugel Dean's Chair and is Professor of Gerontology and Psychology. Previously he was Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at USC and served also as Director of Clinical Training. From 1994 to 1996 he was Interim Dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and from 2005 to 2006 was Interim Dean of the USC School of Architecture. Previously he was on the psychology faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a Charter Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and a member of the Gerontological Society of America. During 2006 he served as President of the Society of Clinical Psychology (Division 12 of the American Psychological Association) and as Chair of the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology. He earned his B.A. from Harvard in Social Relations and his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford.

Among his honors and awards are an outstanding achievement award from APA's Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility, the USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Outstanding Educator Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.

Among his more than 150 publications, his book Clinical Behavior Therapy, co-authored in 1976 with Marvin Goldfried and reissued in expanded form in 1994, is one of two publications that have been recognized as Citation Classics by the Social Sciences Citation Index; it appears in German and Spanish translation. His textbook Abnormal Psychology, co-authored with Ann Kring, John Neale and Sheri Johnson, is in its tenth edition and is a widely used abnormal text in North America and around the world. It is translated into German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Korean, with translations into Orthodox Chinese and Portuguese in preparation. Other books are Case Studies in Abnormal Psychology, Seventh Edition (2007) with Oltmanns and Neale and Exploring Abnormal Psychology (1996) with Neale and Haaga. Davison is also on the editorial board of several professional journals.

His publications emphasize experimental and philosophical analyses of psychopathology, assessment, and therapeutic change. His current research program focuses on the relationships between cognition and a variety of behavioral and emotional problems via his articulated thoughts in simulated situations think-aloud paradigm.

Elizabeth M. Daley

Dean, USC School of Cinematic Arts

Elizabeth Daley was appointed dean of the USC School of Cinema-Television in May 1991. She is the inaugural holder of the Steven J. Ross/Time Warner Dean's Chair. Daley was also the founding executive director of the USC Annenberg Center for Communication (1994-2005) and serves as the executive director of the USC Institute for Multimedia Literacy.

Since becoming dean, Daley has strengthened the school's academic programs, infrastructure, and ties with the entertainment industry and media arts community. Under her leadership, the school has added two new divisions in animation & digital arts and interactive media, built the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, installed 13 endowed chairs, and formed successful partnerships with a variety of entertainment and technology companies. On Oct. 4, 2006, Daley presided over the official creation of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and broke ground for the school's new 137,000-square-foot building complex.

She joined the school in 1989 as chair of the Film & Television Production Program. Before coming to USC, Daley served as director of the film and television subsidiary of the Mark Taper Forum, and prior to that was a producer for MGM/Television. She has also been an independent producer and media consultant, and serves on the boards of directors of the Center for Governmental Studies, the Benton Foundation, the Digital Coast Round Table, and AVID Technologies, as well as the Board of Governors of Operation Smile.

Daley has been honored by American Women in Radio and Television and was twice nominated for a Los Angeles Area Emmy Award. She has received a Cine Golden Eagle and the Barbara Jordan Award, as well as the California Governor's Award for her work with programming about the handicapped. She was recently honored with a Business Leadership award by Women in Film, acknowledging extraordinary contributions by women behind the camera.

Daley earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and M.A. and B.A. degrees from Tulane University and Newcomb College.

Yongheng Deng

Associate Professor and Director of Doctoral Program, USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development

Yongheng Deng is Associate Professor and Director of Doctoral Program at the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at University of Southern California. He is a recognized expert on the mortgage and mortgage-backed security market and housing market, has published numerous articles on the topic in journals such as Econometrica, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, Real Estate Economics, and Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. Dr. Deng has been elected to serve on the boards of many academic and industrial organizations, including American Real Estate and Urban Economic Association, Asian Real Estate Society, Real Estate Research Institute, Gerson Lehrman Group Real Estate Council of Advisors. He also serves on the editorial boards of Real Estate Economics, and Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. Dr. Deng is a Fellow at the Homer Hoyt Institute of Advanced Real Estate Studies, and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS). Prior to joining USC, he was an Economist and Expert at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), Washington D.C., and was a Post-Doctoral research fellow at the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a Ph.D. degree in economics from University of California at Berkeley.

Clayton Dube

Associate Director, USC US-China Institute

Clayton Dube is Associate Director of the USC U.S.-China Institute, which aims to enhance understanding of the 21st century's definitive and multidimensional relationship through cutting-edge social science research, innovative graduate and undergraduate training, extensive and influential public events, and professional development efforts. He was previously the UCLA Asia Institute's Assistant Director. During his tenure there, he headed the Asian studies teacher training program and oversaw a variety of instructional, research, and outreach initiatives. Among the projects he directed were two student-driven web publications, AsiaMedia and Asia Pacific Arts, each of which now has more than one million readers annually. Dube's research has focused on how economic and political change in China since 1900 affected the lives of people in small towns. He teaches Chinese, Asian, and world history and has received teaching awards from three universities. He served as associate editor for Modern China, an academic quarterly, from 1998 to 2002. Dube first visited China in 1982, living and working there for three years. He has returned many times to carry out fieldwork and to lead study tours.

James G. Ellis

Dean, USC Marshall School of Business
Robert R. Dockson Dean's Chair in Business Administration

James G. Ellis is a leading scholar on global commerce, a successful business executive and prominent civic leader. He brings that wide-ranging experience to his newest challenge at the University of Southern California, as dean of the USC Marshall School of Business and holder of the Robert R. Dockson Dean's Chair in Business Administration.

Dean Ellis most recently was USC's vice provost for globalization, developing an initiative encompassing international instructional and research programs, managing USC overseas offices and coordinating visits by foreign dignitaries.

Dean Ellis previously was Marshall's vice dean of external relations and clinical professor in its Marketing Department, with deep expertise in several Pacific Rim countries. Dean Ellis has received numerous teaching awards.

Dean Ellis also has decades of business experience, working in senior management or director positions with Broadway Department Stores, American Porsche Design, Miller's Outpost and several other companies.

Dean Ellis holds an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a B.B.A. from the University of New Mexico. He has served on the boards of directors of numerous corporate and non-profit organizations, including the Young Presidents Organization, Kidspace Children's Museum, Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and World Presidents Organization.

Timothy E. Feige

Co-President, Prudential International Insurance

Tim Feige is co-president, Prudential International Insurance, heading International Insurance operations outside Japan. In this role, Feige is responsible for accelerating the growth of Life Planner insurance businesses in Asia, Latin America and Europe as well as guiding insurance activities in new markets and leading Prudential's International Insurance mergers and acquisitions team.

Feige joined Prudential in 1976 in the Company's planning unit. Since then, he has held a variety of managerial and executive positions. Feige joined Prudential International Insurance in 1997 as senior vice president with responsibility for financial functions, new business development and European Operations. After working on the restructuring and acquisition of Gibraltar Life, he became Gibraltar's President and Chief Executive Officer in 2002, a position he held until July, 2006.

Feige holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and an AB in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard College. He has earned the insurance industry's Chartered Life Underwriter, Charter Property and Casualty Underwriter, and Chartered Financial Consultant designations.

Robert Alan Feldman

Head of Japanese Economic Research, Morgan Stanley Japan Securities Co., Ltd

Robert Alan Feldman is the Head of Japan Economic Research. As part of Morgan Stanley's global economics team, he is responsible for forecasting the Japanese economy, financial markets and policy developments. He is a regular commentator on World Business Satellite, the nightly business program of TV Tokyo.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 1998, Robert was the chief economist for Japan for Salomon Brothers from 1990-97. He worked for the International Monetary Fund from 1983-89, in the Asian, European, and Research Departments.

Robert has a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he concentrated on international finance and development. He did his undergraduate work at Yale University, where he took BAs in both Economics and in Japanese Studies, graduating phi beta kappa, summa cum laude. Before he entered graduate school, he worked at both the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and at the Chase Manhattan Bank.

Robert has published four books, Japanese Financial Markets: Deficits, Dilemmas, and Deregulation (MIT Press, 1986), Nihon no Suijaku ("The Weakening of Japan", Toyo Keizai 1996, in Japanese), Nihon no Saiki ("Starting Over", Toyo Keizai 2001, in Japanese), and Kozo kaikaku no saki wo yomu ("Beyond Structural Reform", Toyo Keizai 2005, in Japanese). A fluent speaker of Japanese, he has also translated four books from Japanese to English, including Economic Growth in Prewar Japan (by Takafusa Nakamura, Yale U. Press).

Born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Robert first came to Japan in 1970, as an exchange student, spending a year in Nagoya. He subsequently spent study years at both the Nomura Research Institute (1973-74), and at the Bank of Japan (1981-82).

Scott S. Fisher

Chair, Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinematic Arts

Scott S. Fisher is a media artist and interaction designer whose work focuses primarily on interactive environments and technologies of presence. Well known for his pioneering work in the field of virtual reality at NASA, Fisher's media industry experience also includes Atari, Paramount, and his own companies Telepresence Research and Telepresence Media. A graduate of MIT's Architecture Machine Group (now Media Lab), he has taught at MIT, UCLA, UCSD, and was project professor at Keio University in Japan. Fisher's work has been recognized internationally through numerous presentations, professional publications, and in the popular media. In addition, he has been an artist in residence at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and his stereoscopic imagery and artwork have been exhibited in the U.S., Japan, and Europe.

Marilyn S. Flynn

Dean, USC School of Social Work

Marilyn S. Flynn was appointed Dean of the USC School of Social Work in 1997, and since that time has achieved an $18 million increase in the school's research funding. The school has also constructed a new building and expanded the faculty to an historic high.

Flynn was formerly Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, and Director of the School of Social Work at Michigan State University. She has held several positions of national leadership in the Council on Social Work Education and is founding President of the St. Louis Group, which represents all North American Schools of social work in research extensive universities. She is also recent past president of the California Association of Deans and Directors of Social Work Programs.

Flynn's research interests include application of computer and communications technology, cross-cultural perspectives on service delivery, social program design, and strategic planning. In 1999, she established the James E. Flynn Prize for Research, an internationally competitive award that recognizes a scholar whose interdisciplinary studies have significantly shaped modern social policy. The prize carries a $10,000 honorarium and is the first of its kind in the social work profession. She also introduced the USC School of Social Work's International Social Welfare Prize for outstanding work in human rights. The first prize was given to Madame Kim Dae Jung, First Lady of Korea.

Flynn received her MSW and PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana, with specializations in social policy and economics.

Glen S. Fukushima

President and CEO, Airbus Japan K.K.
Senior Vice President, Airbus S.A.S.
Former President, American Chamber of Commerce in Japan

Glen S. Fukushima leads the Japan operations of Airbus S.A.S., the world's leading manufacturer of commercial aircraft, with 55,000 employees from 85 nationalities, headquartered in Toulouse, France.

Before joining Airbus in February 2005, Fukushima was Co-President and Representative Director of the Japan operations of the NCR Corporation, the $5.6 billion global technology company headquartered in Dayton, Ohio. Before NCR, Fukushima was President (2000-2003) and Chairman (2003-2004) of the Japan operations of Cadence Design Systems, Inc., the $1.4 billion software company and world leader in EDA (electronic design automation), headquartered in Silicon Valley. From May 1998 to September 2000, he was President and Representative Director of the Japan operations of Arthur D. Little, Inc., the strategy management consulting firm. Before joining ADL, he was Vice President of AT&T Japan Ltd. Prior to AT&T, he was based in Washington, D.C. as Deputy Assistant United States Trade Representative for Japan and China (1988-1990) and Director for Japanese Affairs (1985-1988) at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Executive Office of the President. Before government service, he was in corporate law practice in a prominent Los Angeles law firm.

In December 1997, Fukushima was elected the 44th President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ), often described as the most influential American business organization outside the United States. He was re-elected in December 1998 to a second term as President. Previously, he served as ACCJ Vice President (1993-1997) and on the ACCJ Board of Governors (1992). He is on the Board of Directors of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, the America-Japan Society, and the Japan Forum on International Relations; Councilor of the Japan Management Association and the International Christian University; and adviser or board member of several major corporations, nonprofit organizations, and government advisory councils and commissions. In 1993-1994, he was Visiting Professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, and in 2002-2004 served as President of the Japan Stanford Association.

In the United States, Fukushima is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Founding Member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, Distinguished Associate of Stanford University's Asia/Pacific Research Center, and, until June 2001, for eight years Vice Chairman of the Japan-United States Friendship Commission and Vice Chairman of the U.S. panel of CULCON (Joint Committee on United States-Japan Cultural and Educational Interchange). He also sits on the Board of Directors of the Japan Society of Boston and of the Japan Society of Northern California in San Francisco and on the Board of Trustees of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

Fukushima's publications include Nichi-Bei Keizai Masatsu no Seijigaku [The Politics of U.S.-Japan Economic Friction], winner of the 9th Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize in 1993. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, Japan Times, and numerous Japanese-language publications. Fukushima was selected by Tokyo Journal (9/96) as one of the "50 Foreigners in Tokyo Who Make a Difference" and by World Trade Magazine (6/97) as one of the "25 Most Influential U.S. Global Visionaries." He received the "Excellence 2000" Award from the U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce in 1999 and the "Alumni Hall of Fame" Award from Stanford University in 2002.

A native of California, Fukushima was educated at Deep Springs College, Stanford University, Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Business School, and Harvard Law School. At Harvard, he was a National Science Foundation Fellow and a Teaching Fellow for Professors David Riesman and Ezra F. Vogel and former Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer. He has studied and worked in Japan for over 20 years, including at Keio University, a daily newspaper, an international law firm, and as a Fulbright Fellow and a Japan Foundation Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo.

Sakie Fukushima

Managing Director, Japan, Korn/Ferry International

Ms. Fukushima is Korn/Ferry International's Managing Director of Japan and a senior client partner based in Tokyo. She served as a member of the Firm's global Board of Directors from 1995 to 2007. Ms. Fukushima specializes in placing executives in senior management positions in American and European multinational corporations operating in Japan.

Prior to joining the Firm in 1991, Ms. Fukushima was a Consultant at Bain & Company, a major strategic management consulting firm, first in Boston and later in the Tokyo office. Her clients included American, European and Japanese multinational corporations spanning a range of industries. Prior to that, she worked as a summer associate at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. She also served as a consultant in the Boston headquarters of Braxton International, a strategic management consulting firm, and as a Japanese instructor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

Ms. Fukushima is a trustee of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai). Additionally, she serves on the Board of Directors of Japan's leading corporations including Sony Corporation.

Her writings have appeared in various Japanese and English-language publications, and she is a frequent speaker at seminars, conferences and on television talk shows. She is the author of several books including How to Become Marketable before You Become 40 Years Old (in Japanese and translated in Korean). She is co-translator (into Japanese) of Japan as Number One: Lessons for America by Ezra F. Vogel and On Higher Education: The Academic Enterprise in an Era of Rising Student Consumerism by David Riesman.

Ms. Fukushima was one of 13 Japanese women leaders invited to attend a lunch at the American Ambassador's residence in honor of Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton in April 1996. She has received wide media attention as one of only two women who serve on the Board of Directors of organizations among the 27 Japanese companies on Fortune's list of the top 200 global companies.

Ms. Fukushima received her B.A. from Seisen College in Tokyo and her certificate to teach Japanese from the International Christian University. She also received her Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Karen Symms Gallagher

Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean, USC Rossier School of Education

Karen Symms Gallagher is the Emery Stoop and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education and leads her faculty, students and alumni in strengthening urban education locally, nationally and globally.

Dr. Gallagher has been a professor, scholar and academic administrator at both public and private research universities throughout the United States. Before assuming the deanship at USC in 2000, she was the dean of education at the University of Kansas and prior to Kansas, she directed Ohio's Commission on Educational Improvement, working with policymakers in the Ohio General Assembly and business leaders from the Ohio Business Roundtable.

Dean Gallagher has a distinguished career in transforming educational organizations so they successfully achieve their goals. Under her leadership, the USC Rossier School has risen to the rank of 19th nationally and has created highly innovative masters and doctoral programs that prepare educational leaders who are change agents as teachers, administrators and researchers.

The hallmark of Karen Gallagher's leadership style is creating mutually beneficial partnerships to rethink and resolve the complex educational and social issues facing urban communities. Currently she is building a partnership with Peking University that exchanges faculty and students, fosters funded research opportunities, and develops new graduate programs that prepare Chinese and American administrators for 21st century university leadership. In addition, she and her faculty are working with the Los Angeles Urban League to create and implement Neighborhoods@Work, a model for sustainable neighborhood revitalization in central Los Angeles.

Karen Gallagher has published two books: Shaping School Policy: A Guide to Choices, Politics and Community Relations (1992) and Politics of Education Yearbook: The Politics of Teacher Preparation Reform (2000). She has written dozens of scholarly articles in publications ranging from Educational Policy, Research in Higher Education to Early Education and Development.

Dr. Gallagher just completed her appointment as a member of the National Science Foundation's Commission on 21st Century Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, which will issue its National Action Plan to address the critical needs of the US STEM education system in October 2007. She is the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities' representative to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, immediate past president of the USC Phi Kappa Phi, and member of the Los Angeles Urban League's Emeritus Board of Directors.

Genevieve Giuliano

Professor and Senior Associate Dean of Research and Technology
USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development
Director, METRANS Transportation Center

Genevieve Giuliano is Professor and Senior Associate Dean of Research and Technology in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, and Director of the METRANS joint USC and California State University Long Beach Transportation Center. She also holds courtesy appointments in Civil Engineering and Geography. Professor Giuliano's research focus areas include relationships between land use and transportation, transportation policy analysis, and information technology applications in transportation. Her current research includes analysis of regulatory policies aimed at reducing impacts of freight in metropolitan areas, development of metropolitan freight flow models, and analysis of changes in metropolitan spatial structure.

Prof. Giuliano has published over 130 papers, and has presented her research at numerous conferences both within the US and abroad. She serves on the Editorial Boards of Urban Studies and Journal of Transport Policy. She is a past member and Chair of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board. She was named a National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003, received the TRB William Carey Award for Distinguished Service in 2006, and was awarded the Deen Lectureship in 2007. She has participated in several National Research Council policy studies; currently she is chairing the Committee on Funding Options for Freight Transportation Projects of National Significance and a member of the Committee on Global Climate Change and Transportation. She is also founding Chair of the California Research and Technology Advisory Panel.

For recent publications, see http://www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/research/publications/index.html.

Krisztina Holly

Vice Provost and Executive Director of the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation

Krisztina Holly is vice provost and executive director of the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, where she works with academic units across USC to identify promising innovations and innovators, helping faculty and students make societal impact with their ideas. Reporting directly to the provost, Holly oversees a highly-qualified and growing staff with expertise spanning the business, marketing, financial, and legal implications of intellectual property management, technology licensing, and new venture creation.

The USC Stevens Institute for Innovation is a university-wide resource in the Office of the Provost designed to harness and advance the creative thinking and breakthrough research at USC for societal impact. USC Stevens identifies nurtures, protects, and transfers the most exciting innovations from USC to the market, and in turn, provides a central connection for industry seeking cutting-edge innovations in which to invest. Furthermore, USC Stevens develops the innovator as well as innovations, through educational programs, community-building events, and showcase opportunities. From the biosciences and technology to music and cinematic arts, USC Stevens connects faculty, students, and the business community to create an environment for stimulating and inspiring the process of innovation across all disciplines. This is the first time a major research university has taken such a unique approach to innovation.

Holly previously served as the founding executive director of MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, a highly successful and visible program that has supported MIT faculty and students engaged in scientific and technological innovation through grants, symposia, mentoring, and other means.

Holly earned her master's and bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT, with a focus on optics and product design. Her career as an innovator began during her undergraduate years, when she worked on a team that developed the world's first computer-generated, full-color reflection hologram at the MIT Media Lab.

Holly has been active in other non-profit roles as well, including serving as a board member for Entretech, judge in the MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition, an advisory board member of Springboard New England, a member of the committee of visitors for the National Science Foundation's Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, a board member of the MIT Enterprise Forum, Inc., president of the New England Mountain Bike Association, and a board member of the International Bicycling Association.

William J. Ireton

President & Representative Director, Warner Entertainment Japan

William Ireton, President & Representative Director of Warner Entertainment Japan has broad oversight of all of Warner Bros. businesses in Japan, including theatrical production and distribution, television distribution, home video, consumer products, international cinemas, online and emerging distribution technologies.

Until 2006, Ireton served as managing director, Warner Bros. Pictures Japan for 18 years, where he has been instrumental in the distribution of such key releases as the Matrix trilogy, the Harry Potter films and, more recently, Letters from Iwo Jima. Under Ireton's leadership, Warner Bros. Pictures Japan was recognized by the Minister of Trade, Economy and Industry of the government of Japan as the country's top distributor in 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2006. Additionally, the company was the recipient of the "Golden Box Office" award given by Japan's Motion Picture Exhibitors Association for four consecutive years from 2001 to 2004.

Under Ireton's guidance, the carefully customized marketing of releases in Japan has been a great success. Steven Spielberg's A.I. in 2001, for example, with its now much-imitated personal director's message to Japanese audiences, outgrossed the U.S. boxoffice gross as did The Last Samurai. Also, Ireton helped Clint Eastwood arrange research interviews during the making of Letters from Iwo Jima, which held the top position at the box office for five weeks earlier this year.

Ireton has also been key in Warner Bros.'s move into local acquisitions, including Hero and The House of Flying Daggers from China and Windstruck from Korea. More recent acquisitions include The Promise and Fearless from China and My Girl and I from Korea. Warner Bros. also is currently involved in six Japanese productions for release in 2008. Last year, three local Japanese pictures distributed by Warner Bros., Brave Story and the two Death Note movies, accounted for more than 40% of theatrical revenues.

Prior to joining Warner Bros., Ireton held various posts at Toho-Towa, an importer-distributor of foreign films, based in Tokyo and later in Los Angeles. He began his entertainment industry career at Movie/TV Marketing, a motion picture trade journal based in Tokyo.

Ireton graduated from Sophia University in Tokyo with double major in political science and philosophy.

Satoru Iseki

Producer, Tokyo

In 1943, he was born in Tokyo and entered Nippon Herald Co., Ltd. in 1965. Through Publicity Department and International Department at the company, with the establishment of Herald Ace Co., Ltd. in 1981, he was installed the Director Vice-President at Herald Ace. In 1989, he established Nippon Film Development and Finance (NDF). Now he is focusing his effort into fostering for young people while he is engaging in film productions worldwide. He established Hark & Co. in 2001. The company is handling not only developing various films but also planning of a project, finance matters with Asian talented directors, Jacob Cheung, Tsui Hark, and producers, Nansun Shi, Bill Kong. A Battle of Wits was developed by Hark & Co. Also Tara Contents Inc. which was established in 2006 by Iseki and Lee Joo-ick who is one of the producers of A Battle of Wits is aiming at co-producing and developing, financing films.

Works
A Battle of Wits 2006/ Jacob Cheung
The World’s Fastest Indian 2005/ Roger Donaldson
Xanda 2004/ Marco Mak
Vampire Hunter 2002/ Tsui Hark
The Assassin 1998/ Chen Keige
The Tango Lesson 1997/ Sally Potter
FLIRT 1996/ Hal Hartley
Smoke 1995/ Wayne Wang
When Pigs Fly 1993/ Sara Driver
Howards End 1992/ James Ivory
The Crying Game 1992/ Neil Jordan
Shadow of China 1989/ Mitsuo Yanagimachi
Ran 1985/ Akira Kurosawa/(as a production manager)

Joichi Ito

Co-Founder and Board Member, Digital Garage
Chief Executive Officer, Neoteny
Chairman, Creative Commons
Board Member, Technorati

Joichi Ito is a co-founder and board member of Digital Garage and the CEO of Neoteny. He is the Chairman of Creative Commons. He is on the board of Technorati and helps run Technorati Japan. He is the Chairman of Six Apart Japan the weblog software company. He is the board of a number of non-profit organizations including The Mozilla Foundation, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and WITNESS. He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan.

He has served and continues to serve on numerous Japanese central as well as local government committees and boards, advising the government on IT, privacy and computer security related issues. He is currently researching "The Sharing Economy" as a Doctor of Business Administration candidate at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. He is a fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Communications. He maintains a weblog where he regularly shares his thoughts with the online community. He is the Guild Custodian of the World of Warcraft guild, We Know.

Chang Young Jung

President, Yonsei University

President Jung, Professor of Economics, has been a valued member of Yonsei University since 1971. Prior to becoming the President of Yonsei University, he has served various academic and professional positions which include the Vice President for Administration and Development, Dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration, and Director of University Planning and Development. President Jung received his academic degrees from Yonsei University (B.A.) and University of Southern California (M.A. and Ph.D.) and his concentration lies in development economics with major interest areas in Korean Economic development since 1945, technological development and political economy of Korean unification.

Yong-duck Jung

President, The Korea Institute of Public Administration

Yong-duck Jung, the 7th president of the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA), studied at the Seoul National University and the University of Southern California, obtaining BS, MPA and Ph.D. in Public Administration, was a research scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Free University of Berlin, and has served on the faculty of the Seoul National University (on leave). He has published more than one hundred journal articles and wrote dozens of books including the State Apparatus in Korea and Japan (2002), and has acted as editor-in-chief of the Korean Public Administration Review and the Korean Journal of Policy Studies, and as editorial board member of Governance. Dr. Jung has served as the 35th president of the Korean Association for Public Administration (KAPA), executive member for the IPSA's Research Committee on Globalization and Governance, member of the presidential committee for administrative reform, the National Committee for the 6th Global Forum on Reinventing Government, and co-chair with Prime Minister of the Government Performance Evaluation Committee.

Gen Kanai

Director of Asia Business Development, Mozilla

Gen Kanai is Director of Asia Business Development for Mozilla, a California based non-profit which manages and freely distributes the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser. Firefox is the web browser of choice for over 100 million Internet users worldwide in over 50 different languages. Gen is also Director of Marketing for Mozilla Japan. Prior to Mozilla, Gen was on the team responsible for the launch of the weblog search engine, Technorati Japan. Gen has had a personal weblog since 2000 and has tracked the growth of weblogs and other consumer-generated content on the Internet. In 2003, Gen co- produced the First International Moblogging Conference, the first worldwide conference on the topic of mobile weblogs and personal publishing from mobile phones with over 150 attendees from England, Italy, USA, and Japan. Prior to Technorati Japan, Gen worked for Sony Marketing of Japan, Sony Electronics Inc. and Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. on various Internet-related projects in both the US and Japan.

Gen is a fellow of the US-Japan Foundation's "US-Japan Leadership Program" as well as a fellow of the Asia Society's "Asia 21 Young Leaders Initiative." Gen received a BA in Geography from Dartmouth College in 1996. Gen was born and raised in New York City and currently resides in Tokyo.

Mitsuo Kawato

Director and ATR Fellow, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories

Mitsuo Kawato received the B.S. degree in physics from Tokyo University in 1976 and the M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in biophysical engineering from Osaka University in 1978 and 1981, respectively. From 1981 to 1988, he was a faculty member and lecturer at Osaka University. From 1988, he was a senior researcher and then a supervisor in ATR Auditory and Visual Perception Research Laboratories. In 1992, he became department head of Department 3, ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories. From 2003, he has been Director of ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories. In 2004, he became an ATR Fellow and was appointed to the position of Research Supervisor of the Computational Brain Project, ICORP, JST.

He is now concurrently working as a visiting professor at Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Osaka University, the National Institute for Physiological Sciences, and Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine.

Professor Kawato postulated that the cerebellum acquires internal models of motor apparatus through motor learning. His specific theory, called the feedback-error- learning model, predicts that the climbing fiber inputs encode the error signal in the motor-command coordinates, while the cerebellar cortex acquires the inverse dynamics model by changing synaptic weights between parallel-fiber inputs and Purkinje cells. These predictions have been confirmed by physiological experiments on monkeys, human behavioral experiments, and human brain imaging. It is now generally accepted that cerebellar internal models are important not only for sensory-motor integration but also for human cognitive functions.

Over the past twenty years he has published 225 papers and 76 book chapters and gave 122 invited talks. He was awarded the Yonezawa Founder's Medal Memorial Special Award of The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers in 1991, the Outstanding Research Award of the International Neural Network Society in 1992, the Osaka Science Prize in 1993, the 10th Tsukahara Naka-akira Memorial Award in 1996, the Tokizane Toshihiko Memorial Award in 2001, IEICE Fellow in 2004, the Chunichi Cultural Award and the Shida Rinzaburo Award in 2005, and the Asahi Prize in 2007.

He is a governing board member of the Japanese Society of Neuroscience and the Japan Neural Network Society. He has been serving as a co-editor-in-chief of Neural Networks for 15 years and is currently an editor of HFSP Journal. He is a member of the American Physiological Society. He was appointed to the INNS governing board of the International Neural Networks Society three times, from 1999 to 1995, from 1999 to 2002.

Seung-Yu Kim

Chairman and CEO of Hana Financial Group

Seung-Yu Kim, Chairman and CEO of Hana Financial Group was appointed to this post on December 1, 2005. Previously, Mr. Kim began his financial career as the Securities Department Head of the former Korea Investment Finance (Hana Bank's predecessor) in 1971.

Over the last 30 years, Mr. Kim has led Hana Bank to be one of big 4 players in Korean banking industry. Through a series of the mergers and acquisitions with Chungchong, Boram and Seoul Bank, Mr. Kim leveraged the bank's assets up to 91.9 trillion won at the end of 2004. After its conversion into a financial holding company system in December 2005, Hana Financial Group is now positioned as one of the leading financial institutions in Korea as well as one of the world's top 100 financial institutions with assets totaling 140.2 trillion won (approx. USD 151.3 billion) and a worldwide network of 699 branches. (as end of June 2007)

Mr. Kim was named CNN's "New Century Leader" for 2003 and holds an M.B.A degree from University of Southern California (1971).

Jack Knott

C. Irwin and Ione L. Piper Dean and Professor, USC School of Policy, Planning and Development

Jack H. Knott is the C. Erwin and Ione L. Piper Dean and Professor of the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California. Before joining USC, Dean Knott served from 1997 until 2005 as professor of political science and director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Chicago. From 1987 to 1997, Dean Knott was a professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University, where he served as departmental chair and director of Michigan State's Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.

He is a leading scholar in the fields of political institutions and public policy, public management, and health policy. He has published three books, including Reforming Bureaucracy: The Politics of Institutional Choice, and numerous journal articles and book chapters. He has held fellowships from the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City and the International Institute of Management in Berlin. He has also conducted large-scale evaluation studies of private foundation projects and government programs. In addition, he has served as a consultant on public policy to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

Dean Knott received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, his M.A. in comparative political economy from the School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, and his undergraduate degree in history from Calvin College.

Chen-En Ko

Faculty member of College of Management, National Taiwan University
Chairman of Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research

Dr. Ko is a faculty member of College of Management, National Taiwan University, In addition, he is also serving as the chairman of Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, a leading think tank in Taiwan, starting July 2007. He served as its president in 2005/2006. Dr. Ko has taught at the National Taiwan University since 1990 and served as the dean for College of Management during 2000 to 2003. He is now having joint appointment with NTU and CIER. Dr. Ko also serves as a science and technology advisor of the Executive Yuan.

Dr. Ko received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from University of Minnesota in 1987. He taught at the School of Accounting, University of Southern California prior to his appointment as a permanent faculty member in the College of Management at National Taiwan University in 1990. Dr. Ko became Chairman of Department of Accounting in 1994 to 1997. Dr. Ko has worked closely with accounting profession and securities regulators to improve the quality of accounting education and practice. When Dr. Ko served as the dean of the College of Management, he has taken several initiatives to enhance its undergraduate and graduate programs as well as research capacity. Under his leadership as dean, the Executive MBA program of NTU was named as the best program of its kind in Taiwan when the recognition was first awarded in 2002.

In addition to his teaching, Dr. Ko has long been involved in the government's economic and financial policy development, providing policy analysis and recommendations for various government agencies. In the past, Dr. Ko served as the Vice Chairman of Taiwan Thinktank, a non-profit organization active on policy research on domestic and international issues faced by Taiwan. He also served as members in the Presidential Committee on Government Reform, Economic and Financial Consultation Forum of the Prime Minister, Financial Restructure Fund , Financial Reform Task Force , Corporate Governance Reform Task Force, all of the Executive Yuan. In addition, he served as advisors or committee members for a number of ministries, such as the Economic Planning and Development Council, Securities and Futures Commission, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Audit etc..

Dr. Ko is also involved in activities in business communities, including serving as board members in Taiwan Stock Exchange, Gretai Stock Exchange (NASDAQ-like), China Petroleum Corporation in Taiwan. He serves in the Nomination Committees for Chairpersons of State-owned Enterprises, Best Young Entrepreneurs' Award, Best Business Award, and other similar awards in Taiwan.

Kathy Lindsay

Internal Communications Manager, Asia, Lehman Brothers

Kathy Lindsay is the Internal Communications Manager for Lehman Brothers in Asia. Based in Tokyo, Ms. Lindsay is responsible for Lehman Brothers' internal communications program in Asia, which aims to ensure its employees understand the Firm's culture, strategy and successes. She is also co-chair of Women's Initiatives Leading Lehman (WILL), Asia, one of Lehman Brothers' four employee networks in the region.

Prior to joining the Firm in 2004, Ms. Lindsay served as Communications Manager, based in Melbourne, for the Business Council of Australia, a forum for Australia's business leaders to contribute to public policy debates, and earlier as Executive Director of the Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce, based in Bangkok. She has also worked for Australian federal and state politicians, focusing on economics, media and community relations.

Ms. Lindsay was a founding member of the Financial Industry Tokyo (FIT) for Charity fundraising group and has been on its Organizing Committee for the past three years. She has a degree in economics from the University of Queensland.

Lehman Brothers (ticker symbol: LEH), an innovator in global finance, serves the financial needs of corporations, governments and municipalities, institutional clients, and high net worth individuals worldwide. Founded in 1850, Lehman Brothers maintains leadership positions in investment banking, equity and fixed income sales, trading and research, private investment management, asset management and private equity. The Firm is headquartered in New York, with regional headquarters in London and Tokyo, and operates in a network of offices around the world. For further information about Lehman Brothers' services, products and recruitment opportunities, visit the Firm's Web site at www.lehman.com.

Leslie Lord

Executive Assistant to the Chairman, Nifco, Inc.

Leslie Lord joined Nifco Inc. in May, 1984 as Assistant to Mr. Toshiaki Ogasawara, now the Chairman of the company. Since this date, he has worked continuously with Mr. Ogasawara, who also acts as Chairman & Publisher of The Japan Times in addition to his responsibilities as Chairman of Nifco Inc. He has risen in the company and now works as Executive Assistant to the Chairman.

In addition to his present position as Executive Assistant to the Chairman, Mr. Lord acts as director of many of the overseas subsidiaries and affiliates of Nifco Inc. He is also a director of the International Social Support Network, an NPO which provides assistance to the foreign community living in Japan, in particular, those from Latin America and a director of Worldject International Music NPO which sponsors musical concerts promoting relations among Japan, South Korea, China, and the USA and a director of .

Mr. Lord was born in Lancashire, England and studied at Bury Grammar School. He is an Exhibitioner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge where he studied Natural Sciences, and Archĺology and Anthropology. He gained his B.A. in 1977 and took his M.A. in 1981.

Mr. Lord has lived in Tokyo, Japan since March 1979 and studied Japanese at the International Education Center, graduating from this school in June 1982.

Dan Lynch

Associate Professor, International Relations, USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Daniel Lynch is Associate Professor of International Relations at USC. His current research focuses on how Chinese intellectual and political elites are thinking qualitatively about China's future, in five different areas: domestic politics, international role, the techno-economy, state management of culture, and the environment. He is the author of numerous articles and two books: Rising China and Asian Democratization: Socialization to "Global Culture" in the Political Transformations of Thailand, China, and Taiwan (Stanford University Press, 2006), and After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics, and "Thought Work" in Reformed China(Stanford University Press, 1999). Prof. Lynch earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan and is a member of the USC U.S.-China Institute.

Qingyun Ma

Dean, USC School of Architecture
Holder of USC's Della and Harry MacDonald Dean's Chair in Architecture

Qingyun Ma is dean of the USC School of Architecture and holder of the Della and Harry MacDonald Dean's Chair in Architecture. Ma is considered one of the most influential architects in his field through his participative architectural practice and large range of social initiatives. Prior to beginning his deanship he was principal of the firm MADA s.p.a.m., which is based in Shanghai, China. Navigating from the professional world to the academic, he brings with him a global perspective and also an integrated vision to the school.

He recently launched a variety of programs and initiatives to bolster the school's profile including two task forces: the Center of Performative Environment (COPE) and the Center of Design Operatives (CODO). Both centers are meant to consolidate the school's traditional strength and explore new territories and techniques in design research. He also initiated a graduate foreign studio program called Delta Investigation and Inquiry Program (DIIP). A 12-week summer Graduate Studies Abroad Program, DIIP identifies a locality by a specific global problem and involves three universities, one of which is local. The first Delta was formed by USC, Columbia and Tongji Universities and focused on the tropical island of Hainan to investigate eco-urbanism. The program has exhibited great promise among students, faculty, local scholars and government and even building industries. He was also tapped to curate the Shenzhen Biennale on Urbanism and Architecture, which takes place in December. His involvement in the Biennale marks the USC School of Architecture's first exposure across the Pacific Ocean in a way that is systematic and celebrational. Working in collaboration with students and faculty, the Biennale will feature the first DIIP project on eco-urbanism titled "Troparadise" and conceived in Hainan, China during summer 2007.

His architectural firm MADA s.p.a.m. has produced some of the most critical urban designs and creative buildings in China, garnering worldwide recognition. His designs, which include Thumb Island, Shanghai and the Zhejiang University Library in Ningbo, China, have been widely exhibited throughout Europe and Asia. He has served as keynote speaker at the 2005 World Association of Chinese Architects sponsored by the Hong Kong Institute of Architects, the Mies van der Roe Foundation in Barcelona, 2007, at Bridge the Gap, CCA, Japan, 2006 as well as at numerous Urban Age Conferences which are a worldwide series investigating the future of cities sponsored by the London School of Economics. He has been profiled in articles such as "Design Vanguard 2003" by Architectural Record, "Emerging Design Talents" by Phaidon, "Pioneers of Chinese Architecture" by Architecture and Urbanism (A+U, Japan) and "New Trends of Architecture" by the Euro-Asia Foundation. Additionally, he has served as a planning expert and presenter to the International Olympic Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and as a member of the conceptual script team for the 2010 Shanghai Exposition.

Sri Manchala

President and Chief Executive Officer, Trianz

Sri Manchala is a Trianz veteran, having founded and led the company since 2001. His background in operations and technology, cross-industry exposure and keen client focus led him to envision Trianz as a futuristic, global professional services firm with a service portfolio spanning business, technology and outsourcing where everything is based on new paradigms in execution. Sri personifies the Trianz ethos - of being client focused, value driven and to deliver results, not excuses, for clients. Prior to joining Trianz, Sri was with Cisco Systems, overseeing the execution of complex cross-functional initiatives with the Information Technology group. Earlier, Sri had stints with KPMG Consulting in their Silicon Valley office, serving global clients with the supply chain practice; and in manufacturing and distribution at Asian Paints, India's leading paint and chemicals conglomerate.

Sri has a Bachelors Degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in India and a Masters in Business Administration from the Marshall School at the University of Southern California

W. David Marx

Writer and Market Analyst, Chief Editor, mekas.jp

W. David Marx is an American writer, blogger, and market analyst living in Tokyo, Japan. He currently acts as Chief Editor of mekas.jp - a news and consulting service providing information on the Japanese fashion market to foreign stakeholders. He also writes essays on Japanese consumer trends and media insights for Diamond Agency's clast blog, syndicated in Japanese on Livedoor News.

Under the pen name Marxy, he has spent the last several years crafting hundreds of long-form essays about Japanese popular culture on his widely-read and oft-controversial blog, Nèomarxisme. In September 2007, Marx placed the site on hiatus to create a new multi-author web journal entitled Nèojaponisme.

Outside of his own new media ventures, Marx has provided text and translations for American and Japanese publications including GQ, Harper's Magazine, Nylon, The Japan Times, and Cyzo.

Marx is a graduate of Harvard University (B.A., East Asian Studies) and Keio University (M.A., Business and Commerce). He is a former editor of Tokion and the Harvard Lampoon.

Leonard Meyer zu Brickwedde

President and CEO, Hypo Real Estate Capital Japan Corporation

Following an apprenticeship in banking, Dr. Leonard Meyer zu Brickwedde studied law at universities in Muenster and Osnabrueck where he completed his doctoral dissertation in law in 1987. He started his professional career in 1986 with Bankhaus Hallbaum Maier & Co. In 1988, he joined Bayerische Vereinsbank. Since 1993, he has been in Japan, holding various management positions as Head of Corporate Banking of HypoVereinsbank (HVB) Tokyo Branch, as well as Managing Director and General Manager of HVB Capital Asia Limited Tokyo Branch. In January 2004 he joined Hypo Real Estate Group to build up their business in Japan. He has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Hypo Real Estate Capital Japan Corporation since February 2004 and he was appointed as Chief Representative of Hypo Real Estate Bank International AG in April 2006. Hypo Real Estate Group is a leading global lender in commercial real estate with a network presents in Europe, US and Asia.

Tetsuya Mizuguchi

Artist, Creative Director, Producer

Tetsuya Mizuguchi majored in media aesthetics and while seeking possibilities in film, music and writing, he entered the field of interactive arts and entertainment. After producing a few virtual reality simulator type games with Sega, Mizuguchi opened up the path for music-based games, the first of many games was "Space Channel 5." Mizuguchi is perhaps most revered for creating the gaming odyssey "Rez." In 2001 he challenged himself to merge Kandinsky's theory of synaesthesia experience, blending trance, electronic music with the rich visual textures on screen to create the unique and highly popular music-based game. The innovative title collected many awards worldwide, including an honorary mention in Prix Ars Electronica 2002 Interactive Art Division.

His recent creations include the critically acclaimed music and luminary action puzzle game series "Lumines," which was released worldwide in 2004 for PlayStation Portable. The series has now developed into the mobile arena servicing over 76 countries ("Lumines Mobile") as well as Xbox LIVE Arcade ("Lumines Live!") and PlayStation 2 ("Lumines Plus") platforms. In 2007, the sequel "Lumines II" was released and featured music videos of international artists including The Black Eyed Peas, Beck, Chemical Brothers, Fat Boy Slim, Hoobastank, Junior Senior, Missy Elliot, Gwen Stefani and others.

Mizuguchi then incorporated the theme of anti-war into a video game titled "Ninety Nine Nights," released on the Xbox 360 in 2006. Inspired by Akira Kurosawa's film "Rashomon" where one story is told from four different points of view and having experienced the shock from the devastating events of 9/11, he was determined to create a game where the player was able to choose his/her party of justice. Through the fantasy setting of humans versus goblins, players were given the opportunity to view the pain and suffering encountered by both sides during the battles.

In 2006, he was selected as one of the "Digital 50" by the Producers Guild of America and The Hollywood Reporter Mizuguchi is currently leading advertisement and creative messaging projects that involve a new form of expression through the use of a wide variety of media.

Brian Nelson

CEO of ValueCommerce Co., Ltd., Japan

ValueCommerce was established in 1996 as an internet hosting company. In 1999 the business took a dramatic change in strategy and began creating an internet sales and advertising network model- the first of its kind in Japan. Brian joined ValueCommerce in January of 2000 as the COO and became the CEO in March of 2001.

As of June 2007, the "ValueCommerce Network" has over 1,630 EC clients, and over 437,000 partners made up of website owners, mobile sites, bloggers and large portals. Once a partner registers to join this network they can form unique relationships with advertisers in order to promote their products, services and/or interests. In return the partner's can earn commissions for themselves. The "ValueCommerce Network" is now the largest in Japan.

In 2005, Brian worked out a partnership agreement with Yahoo! Japan in which Yahoo! Japan paid 10.9 billion yen (just over US $100m) in an all cash deal for 49.71% of ValueCommerce. In 2006, Brian guided ValueCommerce to a successful IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (code: 2491).

Brian's management experience and leadership abilities have helped build ValueCommerce into one of the leading Internet Sales and Marketing companies in Japan. Through his results oriented operational philosophy, team building skills, motivation based communications and clear direction, Brian has been able to harness the tremendous strength of a diverse and highly talented management team and group of employees, who are focused on executing an aggressive vision and strategy for the future.

Brian gained his experience and skills through his operational, sales, consulting, marketing, and senior management positions which he has held since first coming to Japan in 1990. Prior to joining ValueCommerce, Brian was working in the consulting industry, where he had a highly successful career with "The Gallup Organization" in Japan. As Director of Sales and Marketing he was credited with developing and managing Gallup Japan's domestic and international client portfolio, consistently boosting year-on-year revenues, profits, and customer satisfaction.

C. L. Max Nikias

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of Southern California

C. L. Max Nikias has served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Southern California since June 2005.

Over the course of his career as a researcher, educator and university administrator, Nikias has earned acclaim for his leadership, innovation, fundraising, and ability to build partnerships among varied constituencies.

As USC's chief academic officer and second-ranking officer under President Steven B. Sample, Nikias is charged with accelerating the academic momentum that the university has experienced in recent years. This effort is focused on cross-disciplinary scholarship, international collaboration, socially beneficial innovation, community service, and the use of the arts and humanities as educational tools for students outside of the arts. He also supports the president in fundraising efforts for the university's academic programs.

He oversees a vast academic community, comprising USC's undergraduate college, graduate college, the USC Keck School of Medicine and 15 professional schools, as well as the divisions of Student Affairs, Student Religious Life, Information Technology Services, and Enrollment Services. As provost, he serves as the chairman of clinical oversight for the university's entire Health Sciences Campus.

A passionate advocate for the arts and classical education, Nikias launched Visions and Voices, an arts and humanities initiative, in 2005. To provide maximum educational advantage through USC's renowned constellation of arts programs and through partnerships with Los Angeles' array of cultural organizations, the initiative features film festivals, theatrical plays, humanities lectures, exhibitions and musical and other performances. Each event is accompanied by organized discussions or reflective components, to help students from every discipline to gain new perspectives and to consider the timeless values inherent within the artwork or performance.

Nikias lives in Rancho Palos Verdes, California with his wife, Niki, and their two daughters, Georgiana and Maria. Georgiana graduated from the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences with a double major in English and Archaeology and is now pursuing graduate studies at Oxford University. Maria graduated from the Chadwick School in Palos Verdes and is currently a freshman at the USC College.

Toshiaki Ogasawara

Chairman, The Nifco Group

Toshiaki Ogasawara is Chairman and Publisher of The Japan Times, Limited, which publishes Japan's oldest English language newspaper. The company was founded in 1897 and is, today, the country's only independent English language newspaper.

Concurrently, Mr. Ogasawara is Chairman of Nifco Inc., which is Japan's premier manufacturer of plastic parts and components for the automobile and home electronic appliance makers. He was elected Chairman in 2001 and, before this, had been President of the company since its formation in 1967.

Mr. Ogasawara also acts as Chairman of Simmons Co. Ltd. This Japanese company is the Far Eastern franchisee of Simmons USA and controls the Simmons franchises in 18 Asian countries.

Mr. Ogasawara, was formerly an Advisory Director with Bank of America, and also presently serves or has served on the advisory boards of Avon, General Electric, LucasVarity, Prudential and NIKE.

He has also served on a number of government committees and is presently a member of the Japan Committee for Cultural & Educational Interchange which reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and he is also a member of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Global Industrial & Social Program Research Institute and a member of the same ministry's Advisory Board of Japan International Co-operation System.

In addition, he is also active in Japanese business organisations such as Nippon Keidanren and Keizai Doyukai and international organisations such as Youth for Understanding, United World Colleges, the Japan Center for International Exchange, and others. He has also been appointed as a Life Trustee for the University of Southern California; and serves as a Governor of the Japan Campus of Temple University: he is also a Governor of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and is a Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Society.

Mr. Ogasawara was born in 1931 and has 2 children. He graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. He has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the Universities of South Florida and Florida State.

Yukiko Ogasawara

President and Representative Director of The Japan Times, Limited

Yukiko Ogasawara is President and Representative Director of The Japan Times, Limited. The Japan Times is Japan's oldest English language newspaper, having been founded in 1898, and it serves the foreign and English-reading Japanese communities. Concurrently, she also sits on the board of Nifco Inc., which is the newspaper's parent company.

Yukiko Ogasawara was born in Japan but spent most of her childhood in the United States of America. She graduated from Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington with a B.A. in Art and pursued her artistic studies with an M.F.A. from the California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco, California.

She has been awarded a fellowship from The San Francisco Foundation and has had several exhibitions of her art work in California.

After graduation, she spent some time teaching art and crafts to children whilst she was Artist-in-Residence at the Francisco Middle School in San Francisco at the invitation of the S.F. Arts Education Program. Through her activities, she has shown great interest in children and has made efforts to introduce and art and artwork to children through her activities. In Tokyo, she continues these activities in a private capacity but was recently asked to become a director of the Children's Express, a non-profit organization which seeks to educate children in writing, self-expression and artistic expression.

In 2003, Yukiko Ogasawara returned to Tokyo to take up a position as Assistant General Manager of the International Division in Nifco Inc. and was elected a director of the company in 2005. She was appointed as President of The Japan Times in March 2006.

Yukiko Ogasawara was born in Tokyo in 1961 and has residences both in Tokyo and Los Angeles.

Ichiro Otobe

Chief Strategist, Square Enix Co., Ltd.

Ichiro is chief strategist of Square Enix, a leading interactive entertainment company, known for its video game franchise FINAL FANTASY and DRAGON QUEST .

Ichiro joined Square Enix in 2003, and served as president of Square Enix Inc., a U.S. arm of Square Enix, until 2005. Prior to Square Enix, Ichiro was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company. His clients include a mobile phone operator, media companies as well as financial institutions. He played key roles in introducing innovative mobile and network services in Japan.

Ichiro holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Masters of Engineering in Electronics Engineering from the University of Tokyo.

Robert Pickard

President, North Asia, Edelman

Bob Pickard applies his two decades of public affairs and PR experience to the task of building and serving the firm's expanding community of clients in Japan and Korea. In these countries, Edelman has grown by 800% during the past five years and today it is the leading global PR consultancy in North Asia.

A founder and Representative Director of Edelman Japan, before Bob was Managing Director of Edelman Korea, which was named Edelman's international 'Office of the Year' in 2004 & 2005 and was also recognized as 'Consultancy of the Year' at PR WEEK's 2004 Asia-Pacific PR Awards.

Since 1990, Bob has developed, managed, and implemented effective communication strategies for a diverse spectrum of leading global organizations. An experienced crisis communications practitioner, he has also media trained several hundred executives in America and Asia.

Before joining Edelman, Bob was executive vice president of Environics Communications, a PR agency he co-founded in 1994. There he led the expansion of the firm's business into the U.S. market, serving as general manager of its New York-area office. Earlier, Bob was a vice president at Hill and Knowlton Canada. A member of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro Brazil in 1992, he served on the staff of senior federal Cabinet ministers, including Canada's 16th Prime Minister.

A Toronto native and current resident of Tokyo, Bob has travelled to 39 nations (including all 50 U.S. states). He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Studies from Queen's University and is a frequent conference speaker (e.g. APEC, EIU, WEF) on CSR issues.

Thierry Portè

President and Chief Executive Officer, Shinsei Bank

Thierry Portè is President and Chief Executive Officer of Shinsei Bank, Limited. He joined Shinsei Bank in November 2003 as Vice Chairman and became Vice Chairman and Director in June 2004. Prior to joining Shinsei Bank in November 2003, he was a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley and served as President, Representative Director and Branch Manager of Morgan Stanley Japan.

Mr. Portè received a BA (magna cum laude) in Economics from Harvard College in 1978 and is a Baker Scholar graduate of the Harvard Business School, class of 1982.

Adam C. Powell III

Vice Provost for Globalization, University of Southern California

Adam Clayton Powell III is USC's Vice Provost for Globalization, working closely with faculty and deans to advance the university's globalization initiative, expanding USC's international presence, increasing our leadership role in the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, and promoting the university throughout the world.

Powell previously served as director of the USC Integrated Media Systems Center, the National Science Foundation's Research Center for multimedia research. He is also a senior fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, which is housed in the Annenberg School for Communication.

Powell brings considerable international experience to his role in the Office of the Provost. He helped form and then run training programs and forums on digital media in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States and on new media for journalists, media managers, educators, policy makers, and researchers for the Freedom Forum, first as a consultant, then as director, and finally as vice president. He worked on projects in South Africa for the Ford Foundation, as well as projects in Lagos, Nigeria for the Nigerian Television Authority. He also helped create the annual Highway Africa conference in South Africa, which has become the largest conference in communications and digital media on the African continent.

Powell is widely published, and many of his writings draw on his significant international experience. He recently contributed a chapter to America's Dialogue with the World (Public Diplomacy Council, 2007) and published a book entitled Reinventing Local News: Connecting with Communities Using New Technologies (Figueroa Press, 2006). He has also written for a number of publications, including The New York Times, Wired Magazine, and Online Journalism Review.

Prior to joining the USC faculty in 2003, Powell was general manager of WHUT-TV, the nation's first African American-owned public television station. He also was the founding general manager of KMTP-TV in San Francisco, the nation's second African American-owned public television station, which he helped put on the air in 1991. He has also served as an executive producer at Quincy Jones Entertainment; vice president for news and information programming at National Public Radio; manager of network radio and television news for CBS News; and news director of all-news WINS in New York.

Powell has won numerous awards, including the 1999 World Technology Award for Media and Journalism, sponsored by The Economist, and the Overseas Press Club Award for international reporting for a series of broadcasts he produced on Iran for CBS News.

Jon Pynoos

UPS Foundation Professor of Gerontology, Policy, Planning and Development
Director, USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology

Jon Pynoos is the UPS Foundation Professor of Gerontology, Policy, Planning and Development at the Andrus Gerontology Center of the University of Southern California. He is also Director of the National Resource Center on Supportive Housing and Home Modification, and Co-Director of the Fall Prevention Center of Excellence which is funded by the Archstone Foundation.

Dr. Pynoos has spent his career researching, writing, and advising the government and private sector concerning how to improve housing and long term care policies and programs for the elderly. He has conducted a large number of applied research projects based on surveys and case studies of housing, aging in place and long-term care.

He has written and edited six books on housing and the elderly including Linking Housing and Services for Older Adults: Obstacles, Options, and Opportunities; Housing the Aged: Design Directives and Policy Considerations; and Housing Frail Elders: International Policies, Perspectives and Prospects.

Dr. Pynoos was a delegate to the last three White House Conferences on Aging and is currently a member of the City of Los Angeles Task Force on Aging and the California Commission on Aging. He is also on the Board of the American Society on Aging and served as Vice President of the Gerontological Society of America. He is a founding member of the National Home Modification Action Coalition.

Dr. Pynoos has been awarded both Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships. Before moving to USC in 1979, Dr. Pynoos was Director of an Area Agency on Aging/Home Care Corporation in Massachusetts that provided a range of services to keep older persons out of institutional settings. He holds undergraduate, Master's and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University where he graduated Magna cum Laude.

Yoshiyuki Sankai

Cybernetics Laboratory (Sankai Lab.), Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba

Yoshiyuki Sankai received the PhD in engineering from University of Tsukuba, Japan in 1987. He was Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor of Institute of Systems and Engineering in University of Tsukuba, and a Visiting Professor of Baylor College of Medicine in USA. Currently, he is a professor of Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering in University of Tsukuba, and a president of CYBERDYNE Inc. He was/is also a president of Japan Society of Embolus Detection and Treatment, a chairman of International Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ), an executive board member of RSJ. Now he has become the creator of the world’s most advanced technology: “Cybernics” including Robot Suit HAL, medical technologies, and welfare. He provided a direction of future science and technology for the prime minister and his cabinet members in Council for Science and Technology Policy at the prime minister’s office, in 2006. He won the World Technology Award in 2005, Good Design Gold Award in 2006, the 2006 Japan Innovator Award, the Best Paper Award (International Journal of Advanced Robotics) in 2006, Awards from American Society for Artificial Organs, Award from International Society for Artificial Organs, Minister of Economy, Award from Trade and Industry of Japan in 2007 and so on. Recently, he was selected as a leader of Global COE(Centers of Excellence) program “ Cybernics ” (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan),he obtained the large Grants of NEDO (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of JAPAN), the large Grants for Health Science (Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of JAPAN), and the large grant-in-aid scientific research (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of JAPAN). Now, he is promoting to apply HAL to senior citizen or physically challenged people.

Kumi Sato

President, Cosmo Public Relations Corporation

Kumi Sato has served as President of Cosmo Public Relations Corporation, one of Japan's leading strategic business communications and marketing consulting firm established in 1960, for the past 20 years. During that time, Cosmo has assisted many foreign companies to gain access, achieve visibility, and develop key strategic relationships in the Japanese market.

Ms. Sato is a 1981 graduate of Wellesley College, with a B.A. in East Asian studies. Prior to joining Cosmo, Ms. Sato founded and headed Cosmo International, a consulting firm based in New York and Arlington, Virginia, which specialized in assisting small-to-medium-sized Japanese companies enter the US market. Ms. Sato also worked at McKinsey and Company in New York from 1981-1983.

Ms. Sato has been recognized numerous times for her outstanding leadership in business. In 2002, Ms. Sato led her firm to receive PR Week Asia's "Consultancy of the Year" Award. In July 2000, Business Week featured Ms. Sato as one of its "Stars of Asia--50 Leaders at the Forefront of Change." In April 2000, the Star Group selected Ms. Sato as one of the "50 Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World." Forbes selected her in 1999 as one of the "50 Leading Women Entrepreneurs of Japan." In 1998, the World Economic Forum in Davos elected her as one of the "Hundred Global Leaders for Tomorrow."

Ms. Sato is an active member of several committees and boards in Japan and the U.S. and was one of the youngest members of the prestigious Keizai Doyukai (The Japan Association of Corporate Executives). Ms. Sato is on the Supervisory Board for the Business Breakthrough Consultative Organization on Broadcast Programs headed by Ken Ohmae, and is a member of the Business Leadership Council of Wellesley College and the Committee of 200. In 2002, she became one of the first Japanese women invited to join the World Chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization. Since 2003, Ms. Sato has served as an outside board member of Rokko & Associates, Inc.

In 1999, Ms. Sato founded WomenJapan.com, a company dedicated to the empowerment of women in Japan, and sold the company in October 2002 to ideal coms, Inc. Ms. Sato was featured as one of Japan's 12 IT leaders in "IT and the Leadership Revolution", written by Professor Ichijo Kazuo and is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship, women in business, and crisis communications.

Ms. Sato is married to Donald P. Kanak and has three children.

Stefan Schaal

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and the Neuroscience Program, USC Viterbi School of Engineering

Stefan Schaal is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science and the Neuroscience Program at the University of Southern California, and an Invited Researcher at the ATR Human Information Sciences Laboratory in Japan, where he held an appointment as Head of the Computational Learning Group during an international ERATO project, the Kawato Dynamic Brain Project (ERATO/JST). Before joining USC, Dr. Schaal was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, an Invited Researcher at the ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories in Japan, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and at the Department of Kinesiology of the Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Schaal's research interests include topics of statistical and machine learning, neural networks, computational neuroscience, functional brain imaging, nonlinear dynamics, nonlinear control theory, and biomimetic robotics. He applies his research to problems of artificial and biological motor control and motor learning, focusing on both theoretical investigations and experiments with human subjects and anthropomorphic robot equipment. Dr. Schaal has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles in top journals and conferences, several of which have received best paper awards. He edited several books, co-founded the IEEE/RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robotics, and the Robotics Science and Systems conference, and serves on the editorial board of several journals.