Business opportunities through Expo 2025, Osaka, Kansai, Japan

Hajime Hayashi is the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Prior to the current roles, he was Assistant Chief Cabinet Secretary and Deputy Secretary-General of National Security Secretariat, Cabinet Secretariat. He has significant experience in Europe, where he has held distinguished role as Ambassador to Kingdom of Belgium, and Chief of Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Japan in India, Minister of Economic Affairs, Embassy of Japan in the United States of America and several cabinet responsibilities within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Japan.

Former Managing Partner of Stratton Street Capital LLP who in 2014 stepped back from day to day management. He remains a Director of the succeeding Fund structures, Epic Funds PCC, which launched the very first offshore Renminbi Fund in 2007, and is Chairman of Epic Funds UCITS.

He became an Advisor to INDOS Financial Group which was set up in 2012 to be the first UK Independent Depository to take advantage of the introduction of the AIFMD rules in Europe. Since then, it has grown to have oversight of over $35 billion under its administration made up of 145 Funds from 75 different Investment Managers. They work with 15 different administrators and 12 prime brokers interlinking their depository oversight services. INDOS also offer Cayman Island outsourced services for private Funds and provide AML Officer oversight. They have developed several initiatives in developing ESG Services. In 2022 they gained their Depository License in Eire before becoming part of JTC. He resigned in April 2023.

He also serves in various capacities with the Alternate Investment Management Association. He is the former Chair of The Next Generation Managers Group which supports the development of Independent Fund Managers starting out in the business. He is a founder member of the Sound Practices Committee and is also on the Markets Regulation Standing Committee.

The majority of Andrew’s experience has been spent dealing with The Far East developing a wide range of financial services before founding the company. He studied at INSEAD. He also sits as a Non Executive on several private fund boards on behalf of a number of Asian families. In 2021 he was appointed as an ambassador to the Japan Trade Advisory Group at the Institute of Directors. He is a Governor of Mount Kelly Foundation and a Trustee of Tavistock Heritage Trust.

Dr Indranil Nath is an entrepreneurial and globally exposed leader, board member, and iNED with years of experience in insurance operations and technology across Build, Sell and Delivery Organisations.

Dr Nath held a series of positions with increasing responsibility at DXC, IBM Corp, AXA and EY and currently delivers consulting to Private Equity firms on projects focusing on product development, acquisition and value creation opportunities in insurance software. Technology Inclusion Council has awarded him the ‘2021 Top 100 Diverse Leaders in Tech’. He is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the School of Science & Technology, City University of London, a Chartered Engineer, a Chartered Fellow of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, where he chairs the Japan Business Group.

Jon has a long-standing connection with the IoD and was appointed Director General in October 2019. Jon spent 30 years working in the professional services sector, most recently at Grant Thornton International, where he was responsible for the organisation’s interest in China. He is the author of three books about China and is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Karen Maddocks is Head of the North East Asia Department at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Over more than twenty years, Karen has spent most of her career working on the UK government’s Asia-Pacific policy, covering countries throughout both North East and South East Asia. She has been posted overseas to Hanoi, then to Beijing, where she led Science and Innovation cooperation, and Guangzhou, where she served as Consul General. She returned from Montenegro in summer 2023 where she served as His Majesty’s Ambassador to Montenegro.

Katherine is responsible establishing and managing relationships with country partners for cooperation on major infrastructure projects in third markets.

Katherine brings experience in finance from her time in banking working on corporate lending and export credit agency back transactions. She has experience working with European and Asian export credit agency supported deals across Africa and the Middle.

Rie Hamaguchi has years of experience in the diplomatic world started as an International Press officer of the Japanese Government, then as a diplomat in Washington D.C., bilateral diplomatic relations in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia division of the Foreign Ministry Headquarters in Tokyo in Japan, Vienna in Austria & Moscow in Russia and London in the UK and organised G8 Summit in Europe.

Rie currently works as a business consultant and representative of Global Financial Institutions, Pension Funds, Insurance Funds, Debt Funds and several family offices.

Greg Clark MP is the Trade Envoy to Japan to reinforce the strong UK-Japan trading relationship.

Clark has held positions in HM Treasury and then the Department for Business Innovation and Skills where he served as Secretary of State. Greg was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Tunbridge Wells in 2005. During the Coalition Government he was appointed Minister for Cities in 2011 and later held positions including Financial Secretary to the Treasury Minister of State at the Cabinet Office and Minister for Universities and Science.

Greg became a member of the Cabinet when he served as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government from 2015 until 2016 and then a Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy from 2016 to 2019. He returned to Cabinet on a temporary basis as Secretary of State for Levelling Up Housing and Communities during 2022. As a backbencher he chaired the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee during the peak of the COVID crisis between 2020 and 2022.