Our Team
Board
Former Chairman and CEO, Citizens Financial Group, Inc.
Mr. Lawrence K. Fish is the former Chairman and CEO of Citizens Financial Group, Inc., a multi-state commercial bank holding company headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. During his 17-year tenure, CFG grew 30-fold and became one of the 10 largest commercial bank holding companies in the United States in total assets and deposits.
In addition to USJF, Mr. Fish chairs Bridge Over Troubled Waters, a Boston-area nonprofit providing services to runaway, homeless, and high-risk youth, and the Fish Family Foundation, which administers the Japan Women’s Leadership Initiative founded by Mr. Fish’s wife Atsuko.
Mr. Fish has a long record of leadership positions in business and the community. He’s on the Board of Trustees of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. In July 2003, he was named to the MIT Corporation, which is the Board of Trustees of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2005, joined the Executive Committee of the Corporation and is currently a Trustee Emeritus.
He also is an Honorary Trustee of The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. where he served on the board for 15 years. In 2007, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
He is the retired Chairman of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the largest educational publishing company in the United States. He also is a retired Director of Textron Inc., a leading global multi-industry company with brands including Cessna, Beechcraft, Bell Helicopter, and E-Z-Go golf carts, and Tiffany & Co., a leading American luxury brand with stores throughout the United States and worldwide.
In service to the banking industry, in January 1999, Mr. Fish joined the Federal Advisory Council, a panel of 12 bankers who serve as a key source of information for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the banking community. In January 2001, he was appointed Vice Chairman of the Federal Advisory Council. Mr. Fish served as Director of The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston from 2002 through 2004.
Mr. Fish is the retired Chairman of the board of Management Sciences for Health, a large international public health organization. He has previously served as an Overseer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and on the Board of Directors of Boston’s Dimock Community Foundation, Inc.
A 1966 graduate of Drake, Mr. Fish earned an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1968. He was the recipient of Harvard’s Frank Knox Fellowship, which included graduate study at the London School of Economics and travel in India. Mr. Fish is the recipient of honorary doctorate degrees from Drake University, Providence College, Bryant College, Roger Williams University, Johnson & Wales University, and the University of Massachusetts.
Mr. Fish and his wife reside in Boston and have three children.
President, Keio University
President Kohei Itoh graduated from Keio University and received his MS and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined Keio as a faculty member in 1995 and became a full professor in 2007. He was the dean of the Faculty and Graduate School of Science and Technology between 2017 and 2019. He became Keio president in 2021.
His main research areas are quantum computing, quantum sensing, and quantum physics, leading to over 360 journal publications. He is an executive member of the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, a council member of the Science Council of Japan, and chairs the Japanese government’s Quantum Technology Innovation expert panel. He has served on numerous executive boards, including the Physical Society of Japan and the Japan Society of Applied Physics. He leads various quantum information projects as the program director of Quantum Information Technology in the Quantum Leap Flagship Program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT).
He received the Japan IBM Prize in 2006 and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Prize in 2009. He is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and a fellow of the Japan Society of Applied Physics.
Ms. Wendy Cutler joined the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) as Vice President and Managing Director of the Washington D.C. Office in November 2015. In these roles, she focuses on building ASPI’s presence in Washington — strengthening its outreach as a think/do tank — and on leading initiatives that address challenges related to trade and women’s empowerment in Asia. She joins ASPI following an illustrious career of nearly three decades as a diplomat and negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). Most recently, she served as Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, working on a range of U.S. trade negotiations and initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region. In that capacity, she was responsible for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, including the bilateral negotiations with Japan.
Ms. Cutler’s other responsibilities with USTR included U.S.-China trade relations, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum, and the U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum. She was the Chief U.S. Negotiator for the U.S.-Korea (KORUS) Free Trade Agreement and negotiated a wide range of bilateral agreements with Japan on such issues as telecommunications, autos, and semiconductors. She has extensive multilateral trade experience as the U.S. negotiator for the WTO Financial Services Agreement and several Uruguay Round Agreements. Prior to joining USTR, Ms. Cutler worked on trade issues at the Commerce Department.
Ms. Cutler received her master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and her bachelor’s degree from George Washington University. She is married and has one son.
Mr. Richard Dyck has spent his career in the semiconductor industry, mostly in Japan. He is the owner and President of TGK-Japan, a company that specializes in semiconductor testing. From 1982 to 1999, Mr. Dyck was Vice President of Teradyne, a Boston-based manufacturer of semiconductor capital equipment, where he was responsible for Asia operations. He left Teradyne when he led a management buy-out of the company’s Asia-based high-speed connection system business. Mr. Dyck is a director and investor in Japan Industrial Partners, a Japan-based private equity firm that specializes in the carve-out of businesses from major Japanese corporations. He serves on the board of Hitachi Chemical and the Semiconductor Portal, a company jointly owned by Mr. Dyck and Japan’s main semiconductor equipment, materials, and device manufacturers. He has served on the boards of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), the Tokyo Philharmonic, Nishimachi International School, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, the Japan-US Friendship Commission, and various industrial trade organizations and government advisory committees. In 1999, he was cited by the Japanese Prime Minister for his contribution to Japan’s international trade. He supports several projects in Cambodia, including schools, orphanages, and regional hospitals. Mr. Dyck received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Harvard University.
President & CEO, Los Angeles Dodgers
For four decades, Mr. Stan Kasten has been a highly respected sports figure and developed a reputation for creating winning franchises, relying on three pillars – scouting and player development, enhancing the fan experience, and community outreach – to establish franchises built for long-term success on and off the field.
That track record has continued during his tenure with the Dodgers, where the club has had an unprecedented run of success. With the 2024 World Series title, Los Angeles has now won two of the past five World Series, four National League pennants in the past eight years, and 11 NL West titles in the past 12 seasons. With three World Series titles and more victories, postseason appearances, and division titles than any other in the majors in the past 50 years, no team executive can lay claim to as much success in baseball as Mr. Kasten.
Since Mr. Kasten became the Dodgers’ President and CEO in 2012, the team has topped the Majors in attendance each full season under his leadership while continuously making improvements to Dodger Stadium to keep the league’s third-oldest stadium among the best facilities in baseball. The Dodgers were also named ESPN’s 2020 Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year for the work and community impact of the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation. These achievements led Major League Baseball to award the Dodgers the 2022 All-Star Game, bringing the league’s jewel event back to Los Angeles for the first time since 1980.
Mr. Kasten has been a member of numerous MLB, NBA, and NHL ownership committees during his professional career and is also a former trustee of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. In 1999, Mr. Kasten became the first sports figure to hold the title of president of three different teams in three different major sports simultaneously, doing so with MLB’s Atlanta Braves, the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, and the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers. Mr. Kasten has continued to push the envelope with his leading roles on the Advisory Board of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, founded in 2023, and in the transformation of the Billie Jean King Cup women’s tennis team competition.
In 1979, at age 27, Mr. Kasten launched his career in sports by becoming the youngest general manager in NBA history with the Hawks, a position he held until 1990. Mr. Kasten became the Hawks’ president in 1986. During his lengthy tenure in the Hawks’ front office, Mr. Kasten built the Hawks into a perennial contender, including four consecutive 50-win seasons from 1986-89 and a stretch of seven consecutive playoff appearances in the 1990s, and became the first – and only – NBA executive to win back-to-back Executive of the Year awards in 1986-87.
Mr. Kasten also became president of the Braves in 1986. From 1987-2003, the Braves won more games than any other team in MLB and won 14 consecutive division titles (1991-2005), five National League pennants and the 1995 World Series.
In 1999, when the NHL awarded Atlanta an expansion team, Mr. Kasten added the title of president of the Thrashers, as well as chairman of the newly constructed Philips Arena (now State Farm Arena). Mr. Kasten held all three positions until 2003, when he stepped down.
Prior to joining the Dodgers, Mr. Kasten was president of the Washington Nationals from 2006-10, where he worked to re-energize a dormant baseball fan base and simultaneously established a crown jewel franchise in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Kasten, the Los Angeles Sports Council’s 2013 Executive of the Year, is the former Director of the Sports Lawyer Association and serves on the LA84 Foundation Board of Directors, the Rose Bowl Institute Advisory Board as well as the Board of the US-Japan Foundation.
A native of Lakewood, N.J., Mr. Kasten is a graduate of New York University and Columbia University Law.
Co-Founder and Chair of the Board, UWC ISAK Japan
UWC ISAK Japan is one of the newest additions to the United World College movement and is a residential high school that opened in Karuizawa in 2014. UWC ISAK offers scholarships to 70% of students who come from over 80 countries around the world. ISAK aims to develop transformational leaders who are eager to make a positive change in their countries and communities.
Ms. Lin Kobayashi's passion for education began during her studies at Pearson College UWC in Canada and continued to develop over the years. Before returning to Tokyo in 2008 to launch the ISAK project, she spent two years working for the United Nations Children's Fund in the Philippines, where she worked to program non-formal education projects for street children. Prior to UNICEF, Ms. Kobayashi worked at the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
Ms. Kobayashi began her career at Morgan Stanley and holds an MA in International Education Policy Analysis from Stanford University and a BA in Development Economics from the University of Tokyo. Ms. Kobayashi was a Greenberg World Fellow in 2017 at Yale University, and she has also served on the boards of UWC International since 2020, the International House of Japan since 2022, and the U.S. Japan Foundation since 2024.
Chairman of the Board, International House of Japan
Mr. James Kondo is an executive in the social, technology, and policy arena.
He is currently Chairman of the Board at the International House of Japan, an independent foundation that contributes to building a free, open, and sustainable future.
Mr. Kondo is also a Trustee at the US-Japan Foundation, a Senior Advisor at OpenAI, a Global Trustee and Co-Chair of the Japan Center at Asia Society, and a Trustee at Keio University.
He was previously Vice President of Growth Strategy at Twitter Inc. and Chairman of Twitter Japan, Special Advisor at the Cabinet Office of the Japanese Government, and a consultant at McKinsey.
Mr. Kondo has been selected Fellow of the US-Japan Leadership Program, Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, Asia 21 Fellow of Asia Society, Inamori Fellow of Inamori Foundation, and Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy.
He was a visiting student at Brown University, a graduate of Keio University and Harvard Business School, a World Fellow at Yale University, and a Visiting Scientist at MIT Media Lab.
President, University of Michigan
A recognized leader in higher education in the United States and Canada, President Santa J. Ono is an experienced vision researcher whose pioneering work in experimental medicine focuses on the immune system and eye disease. At U-M, he is a professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, microbiology and immunology in the Medical School, and molecular, cellular, and developmental biology in the College of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts.
Dr. Ono currently serves as the chair of the U-M Health Board, the chair of Fulbright Canada, the chair of the University Climate Change Coalition (UC3), and is an honorary Chairperson of the Japan America Society of Michigan and Southwestern Ontario.
He also serves on a range of other boards, including the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors, the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the American Council on Education, the Council on Competitiveness, the Detroit Economic Club, and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation Board of Trustees.
He has been appointed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to serve on the Executive Committee of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and the Growing Michigan Together Council.
Dr. Ono is a second-generation Japanese American who maintains strong ties to his family in Japan. His grandfather, Akira Ono, was governor of Chiba Prefecture, and he received an honorary doctorate from Chiba University.
He was born in Vancouver, where his father was teaching at the time. Dr. Ono joined U-M from the University of British Columbia, where he served as president and vice-chancellor since 2016.
Prior to his appointment at UBC, he was president of the University of Cincinnati, where he also served as a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Dr. Ono has served as senior vice provost and deputy to the provost at Emory University. He has also taught at Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, and University College London.
He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, USA, and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. In 2022, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
He earned his B.A. in biological sciences from the University of Chicago in 1984 and a Ph.D. in experimental medicine from McGill University in 1991.
President & CEO, United States-Japan Foundation
Mr. Jacob Schlesinger joined the United States-Japan Foundation from The Wall Street Journal, where he worked for more than 30 years as a reporter and editor in Washington, D.C., Tokyo, and Detroit.
At the Journal, he covered economics and economic policy, chronicled elections and summits, trade wars and market crashes, labor strikes, the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S., and Japan’s March 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Mr. Schlesinger was the Journal’s Tokyo bureau chief, deputy Washington bureau chief, and global financial regulation editor.
He is the author of Shadow Shoguns: The Rise and Fall of Japan’s Postwar Political Machine, published in 1997 by Simon & Schuster. While writing that book, he was a fellow at Stanford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center. He was later a Stigler Center Journalist in Residence at the University of Chicago. Mr. Schlesinger returned to Stanford in 2021 as a fellow at the Distinguished Careers Institute, where he studied the threats and challenges to democracy in the U.S. and around the world.
Mr. Schlesinger was a member of the Journal team that won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting on the dot-com bubble and crash. In 2014, he was given Stanford’s Shorenstein Journalism Award, presented annually to a reporter helping global audiences understand the complexities of the Asia-Pacific region.
Mr. Schlesinger grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, and has a BA in economics from Harvard. He lives in Washington with his wife, Louisa Rubinfien, a professor of Japanese history. They have two daughters, one currently working at the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence, the other doing graduate studies in chemical physics at the University of Minnesota.
Director, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates
Ms. Kazuyo Sejima is a leading figure in contemporary architecture, known for her minimalist yet powerful designs that harmonize transparency, light, and spatial fluidity. After graduating with a degree in architecture from Japan Women’s University in 1979 and completing her master’s studies in 1981, Ms. Sejima gained formative experience at Toyo Ito & Associates. In 1987, she launched her own practice, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates, and in 1995, with Ryue Nishizawa, she co-founded SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates), which became known for its innovative approach to architecture.
Ms. Sejima’s work has received international acclaim for its elegance and commitment to creating spaces that connect people with their surroundings. In 2010, she became the second woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, awarded jointly with Nishizawa, for their pioneering contributions. That same year, Ms. Sejima made history as the first woman to serve as director of the architecture sector at the Venice Biennale, where she curated the 12th International Architecture Exhibition.
Some of Ms. Sejima's most iconic works with SANAA include the New Museum in New York City, the Rolex Learning Center in Switzerland, and the Louvre-Lens in France. In Japan, her work includes Kanazawa’s 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art and New Kagawa Prefectural Sports Arena. Her recent achievements include being named a jury member of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and receiving the Praemium Imperiale award in 2022, reflecting her sustained impact on the global architectural landscape. In 2024, she was selected for the Person of Cultural Merit award for those who have made outstanding cultural contributions to the advancement and development of Japanese culture.
Ms. Sejima’s design philosophy imagines spaces in architecture where diverse people can spend time together. She is one of the leading voices in inspiring new generations in her field.
Fellow, Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute
Ms. Donna Tanoue is the former Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in Washington, D.C. Ms. Tanoue is the only person of color to have led the FDIC, the independent agency that works to maintain stability and public confidence in the nation’s financial system by insuring deposits, examining and supervising financial institutions, working to make large and complex financial institutions resolvable, and managing receiverships. During the Obama administration, she was appointed to serve on the inaugural Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Subsequent to the FDIC, she served as Vice Chairman of Bank of Hawaii and Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE: BOH) and a member of Bank of Hawaii’s Managing Committee, the executive team responsible for the bank’s strategic direction. She was also a member of Bank of Hawaii’s Board of Directors and President of Bank of Hawaii Foundation. Previously, she was a partner with the Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel law firm in Hawaii and Commissioner of Financial Institutions for the State of Hawaii.
She served on the boards of Longs Drug Stores Corporation, Walnut Creek, CA (NYSE: LDG, prior to the sale to CVS Corp.) and Kaneohe Ranch Management, Ltd., which manages real estate owned by the family of Harold K.L. Castle and Alice H. Castle, and their nonprofit charitable foundation, the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation. She also served on the boards of The Queen’s Health Systems, Honolulu, HI, Hawaii Community Foundation, University of Hawaii, and PBS, Arlington, VA.
Ms. Tanoue earned her B.A. from the University of Hawaii and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. For the past two years, Ms. Tanoue has been a Fellow with the Distinguished Careers Institute at Stanford University, where she studied emerging issues relating to technology and international relations, with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region.
Deputy President, Daiwa Securities Group Inc.
Ms. Keiko Tashiro began her career with the Daiwa Securities Group in 1986, following her graduation from Waseda University with a BA in Political Science. She received an MBA from Stanford University in 1991 and attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2011.
She has held various positions at Daiwa, including overseas assignments in Singapore, London, and New York. In Japan, in addition to her role as Head of Investor Relations between 1999 and 2005, she spent six years in the retail division of the Group, expanding the non-branch channel (online and call center) and defining a business model for the Group’s retail operations. She held the position of Senior Managing Director and Head of FICC for two years before serving as Executive Managing Director and Chairperson of Daiwa Capital Markets America from 2013-16. She was appointed Senior Executive Managing Director of Daiwa Securities Group, Head of Overseas Operations in 2016, and Deputy President in 2019. She took office as Deputy President, Head of Overseas Operations, and Head of SDGs in 2020, and she has served as Deputy President, Executive Head of Overseas Operations, Head of Sustainability, and Head of Think Tank since April 2022.
She serves various roles in the development of our economic systems, including Vice Chairman at the Japan Association of Corporate Executive, Trustee of the IFRS foundation, Member of the Harvard Business School Japan Advisory Board, and Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Responsive Financial Systems.
Mr. Ryan Akkina is a senior member of the Global Investment Team at the MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCo), which he joined in 2009. MITIMCo is responsible for managing MIT's endowment and pension plans, totaling over $36 billion in assets. Mr. Akkina invests across all asset classes, with an emphasis on strategies related to technology and startups. He manages many of MIT's relationships in venture capital and serves on a number of fund advisory boards. He also leads many of MIT's co-investments and direct investments.
Prior to joining MITIMCo, Mr. Akkina was a consultant at McKinsey & Company.
Mr. Akkina holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.
