Reform & Reward: Seizing New Opportunities in Japanese Asset Management

Jeffrey Leckstein is Global Head of Buy-Side Enterprise Sales at Bloomberg LP. He is responsible for the firm’s approach to enterprise-wide client relationship development and sales strategy globally for Bloomberg’s AIM, PORT and Index products.

Over nearly 20 years with Bloomberg, Jeffrey has held sales management roles both globally and in a regional capacity within the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Until recently, he oversaw Sales across Greater China, including Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and Macau, in addition to Mainland China. Here, he led teams serving the needs of corporations, banks and financial services firms. Prior to that, Jeffrey spent three years leading Bloomberg’s business across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Earlier in his career, he held numerous positions across the company’s Global Data, Analytics and Sales teams.

Jeffrey is a graduate of the University of Delaware, where he studied Economics and Political Science.

Dr. Paul Sheard, an Australian American economist, is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling business book, The Power of Money: How Governments and Banks Create Money and Help Us All Prosper (Matt Holt Books). Sheard’s earlier academic work focused on Japanese corporate organization and corporate governance, including two books in Japanese, The Crisis of Main Bank Capitalism (1997), which won the prestigious Suntory-Gakugei Prize, and Mega Corporate Restructuring (2000).

He is a former Vice Chairman of S&P Global and a former Senior Fellow and Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. He held chief economist positions at S&P Global, Nomura Securities, and Lehman Brothers, and was Japan Strategist at Baring Asset Management. He was Lecturer in Economics at the ANU and Associate Professor of Economics at Osaka University, and held visiting positions at Stanford University and the Bank of Japan. Sheard has served on several World Economic Forum panels and was appointed by two prime ministers to serve on advisory committees of the Japanese Government. He was a non-executive director of ORIX Corporation. A member of the Bretton Woods Committee, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Economic Club of New York, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, Sheard sits on the board of the Foreign Policy Association and on the advisory board of the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.

Sheard has a Master of Economics and PhD from the ANU, and an honorary Doctor of Laws from his alma mater, Monash University.

Taro Kimura is Bloomberg’s Senior Economist, based in Tokyo. He leads research on Japan’s economy for Bloomberg Economics. He previously worked at the Bank of Japan mostly contributing to macroeconomic analysis and forecasts for Japan and outside.

Taro has a Master’s in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Keio University.

Makoto Kasai is General Manager for the Americas of the Bank of Japan. He is responsible for assessing the economies and analyzing policy development mainly in the U.S. but also in the other countries of the region through collecting on-the-ground information. He is also in charge of promoting better understanding of Japanese economy and the Bank of Japan’s policies.

Mr. Kasai joined the Bank in 1995 and assumed pivotal managerial positions in Financial System Department, Research and Statistics Department, and Monetary Affairs Department. He was Senior Secretary to the former Governor Kuroda from March 2013 to September 2016 when the Bank adopted extraordinary monetary easing. He also worked for the OECD as Economist at the Economics Department from September 2016 to May 2018, and was a regular contributor to its flagship report, Economic Outlook.

Mr. Kasai received his MBA from the Georgetown University and his BA in Law from the University of Tokyo.

After joining the Tokyo Stock Exchange in April 2000, Kunihiko Kato worked in the Equity and Listing sections, and was seconded to the Economic Cooperation and Development Organization Office, Economic Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.

During his secondment, he participated in the Corporate Governance Steering Group of the OECD, where he was involved in promoting and educating the public on OECD Principles of Corporate Governance.

Thereafter, he worked in the Clearing and Settlement Division and the Derivatives Market Planning Division before assuming his current position as Senior Manager of the Planning Group in the Listing Department in April 2022.

Currently, he is in charge of planning and drafting of the overall listing system, including follow-up of the marker restructuring and Corporate Governance Code.

Mr. Takada is the Director for Strategy Development at the JFSA responsible for financial market policies including promotion of international financial centres and sustainable finance.

He joined the Ministry of Finance in 1995 and worked on various policy areas including public finance, tax and financial services. His secondment experiences include: study in the UK (1997-99); HM Treasury (the UK finance ministry, 2003-06); National Policy Unit (2009-11); OECD, Paris, where he was engaged in green finance (2015-18); and the Climate Change Office at the Cabinet Secretariat (2021). From 2018, in his private capacity, Mr. Takada runs the Green Finance Network Japan, an informal network of key players on green finance in Japan.

Mr. Takada received a Bachelor degree in Law (University of Tokyo), a Master degree in Law (Cambridge University) and an MBA (Imperial College London).

Alicia Ogawa is currently a member of the New Governance Task Force at KT (Korea Telecom), and until June 2023 ran the Project on Japanese Corporate Governance and Stewardship at Columbia Business School.

Since 2008, she has been a consultant on Japan strategies to two of the largest U.S.-based activist hedge funds, and an advisor to several Japan-focused activist funds. She is a director at the LSE-listed Nippon Active Value Fund, as well as the Tokyo-based activist fund Misaki Capital, and is a consultant at Questhub, a Tokyo-based governance advisory firm. She spent a decade as an assistant adjunct Professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs running graduate seminars on ESG issues. Until 2006, she was managing director at Lehman Brothers in New York City, where she was responsible for managing the firm’s global equity research product. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, Ogawa spent 15 years in Tokyo, where she was a top-rated bank analyst and director of research for Nikko Citigroup. She is currently a member of the board of directors of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, and a member of the board of directors of Pure Earth, a global NGO dedicated to addressing global lead pollution.

She graduated from Barnard College and earned a master’s degree in international affairs at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Koichi Ito is the Chief Representative of the Ministry of Finance at the Consulate General of Japan in New York. His responsibilities include engaging with U.S. economists, attracting investments to Japan, and promoting Japanese products such as sake.

Before his return to the U.S. in June 2023, he served in the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo as an Executive Assistant to a Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, a close aide to the Prime Minister, managing a broad portfolio of domestic and political issues. He also spent several years in the Ministry of Finance designing the foreign ministry’s budget, modifying corporate tax, and introducing a new tax for tourism policies.

He was stationed at the Embassy of Japan in Washington D.C. from 2013 to 2016, which enhances his current mission of fostering bilateral economic ties.

Koichi graduated from the University of Tokyo and earned master’s degrees in public affairs from Columbia SIPA in 2010 and taxation from Baruch College, CUNY, in 2011.