Hirofumi Kasai is Chief Investment Officer of TMAM, a position he was appointed to in April 2002. As one of several Executive Directors and a member of the Executive Committee, he has been responsible for managing TMAM since 2002. Hirofumi joined TMAM in 1996 and was assigned various leading positions such as Senior Portfolio Manager of Japanese equities and Head of Quantitative Research.

Prior to joining TMAM, Hirofumi started his professional career at Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. (currently known as Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.) with responsibilities for Japanese equities and global fixed income management.

Ken Kobayashi, CFA, is JEF Director of Investment. He is also Group Leader of the Responsible Investment Group at TMAM in charge of ESG issues. He has more than 20 years of investment experience, including almost 12 years at TMAM. Prior to joining TMAM, Ken started his professional career at the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, where he spent 5 years (1994-1999) in New York recommending credit opinions on commercial and industrial loans to North American companies, and later managing such loan portfolios as well as commitments to alternative investment opportunities including US private equity funds.

Tomishi Ishida is Head of Investment Research at JEF. From 2009 to 2011 he was on secondment to GO Japan from TMAM to help launch and manage the GO Japan Engagement Consortium. He has more than 12 years of investment experience, including over 8 years (1998-2006) as an equity analyst at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo covering the Japanese banking and non-life insurance sectors. While at Goldman, where he started his professional career, Tomishi was a ranked analyst in both the Institutional Investor and Nikkei Analyst surveys. Prior to joining TMAM, Tomishi was a Managing Director at Alpha-Pac Japan, a boutique hedge fund, covering Japanese quoted equities. 

Toshiaki Oguchi is Executive Director of GO Japan. He has more than 20 years business experience in Japan, the U.S. and the U.K and has extensive skills and experience in both corporate governance matters and institutional relations. He has held a number of different roles over that period, mostly in corporate planning and product development for Nippon Life and Nissay Asset Management Corporation. From 2002 to 2003, he was seconded to Hermes Pensions Management in the UK to take the role of Manager, Corporate Governance, Asia-Pacific, in which role he was also exposed to international corporate governance approaches. At Nissay Asset Management, he was a member of the corporate governance committee and the decision-making group of its Japanese corporate governance fund and was also responsible for marketing NAM’s products to non-Japanese institutional investors. Toshiaki is a member of several corporate governance networking groups in Japan and internationally and an active participant in the governance debate.

Kenji Iwamoto is Director of Engagement Japan. He joined GO Japan in February 2011, responsible for developing engagement approaches at GO Japan (including the Japan Engagement Consortium) and the JEF. Kenji has over 18 years of experience in corporate finance and has had extensive interactions with senior management of Japanese companies to enhance shareholder value. From 2007 to 2010, he was a Director at Taiyo Pacific Partners, LP in Monterey, California, responsible for engagement strategy as well as investment management for the Japan-focused Taiyo Fund. Before Taiyo, he was at Mizuho Corporate Bank in New York, focusing on credit analysis and investment management of US investment grade companies. Prior to working in USA, he was a financial advisor involved in major M&As in Japan at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo. He started his career at The Industrial Bank of Japan (IBJ, now Mizuho Financial Group), where he worked on sovereign debt rescheduling negotiations and corporate banking.

Yoshikazu Maeda joined GO Japan in October 2009 as an investment and governance analyst. Prior to joining GO, Yoshikazu was an Associate at Goldman Sachs working in the banking sector. He also worked at the Financial Services Agency in Tokyo, where he participated in a two year overseas government-sponsored study programme which included gaining a distinction in his MSc in Finance at the London Business School. He is a lawyer by training.