Director General and Trustees

Director General

Jason James OBE

Jason James has been Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation since October 2011. Having been fascinated by Japan on a choir tour at the age of 13, he chose to read Japanese Studies at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was a double scholar (academic and choral), graduating First Class with Distinction in 1987. Subsequently he worked for many years in the financial industry, mostly specialising in Japanese equities, becoming Head of Research in the Tokyo office of HSBC Securities, and eventually Head of Global Equity Strategy at HSBC in London. From 2007-2011 Mr. James was Director of the British Council in Tokyo, during which time he also served as Chair of the European Union National Institutes of Culture Japan cluster, a Board Member of the Japan-British Society (and Chair of its Awards Committee), and a Board Member of United World Colleges Japan.

Mr James’s interest in Japan is broad, covering the economy, financial markets and tax, as well as Japanese literature and arts, and the relationship between the UK and Japan. Publications range from The Political Economy of Japanese Financial Markets (co-author, Macmillan 1999), to Edmund Blunden and Japan (Asiatic Society, 2010).

Trustees

The Trustees of the Foundation are as follows:

Sir Tim Hitchens, KCVO, CMG – Chair

Sir Tim became Chair of the Foundation in July 2020, taking over from Sir Peter Williams.

In May 2018 he became President of  Wolfson College, Oxford, after having served as Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Summit Unit.

Before that he was Director-General, Economic and Consular at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He has over thirty years of experience as a diplomat, having served in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and France. He  spent three years as Foreign and Commonwealth Office director for Africa, and most recently four years as British Ambassador to Tokyo, up until 2016.

For reference: Sir Tim Hitchens appointed Chair of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation – Daiwa Foundation (dajf.org.uk)

Ms Keiko Tashiro, CFA –  Vice Chair

Member of the Board, Deputy President, Daiwa Securities Group Inc.

Ms 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.

She has held various positions at Daiwa, including overseas assignments in Singapore, London, and New York. In Japan, in addition to her roleas Head of Investor Relations (1999–2005), she spent six years in the retail division of the Group. After returning from the US, she was appointed of Head of Overseas Operations in 2016 and Deputy President in 2019. From 2020 to 2024, she led various sectors as Deputy President, including Overseas Operations, SDGs, Sustainability, and Think Tank initiatives.

Currently, she continues to serve as Deputy President, overseeing Sustainability, Financial Literacy and Education, Securities Asset Management, and Think Tank functions.

She also serves amongst other roles as Vice Chairman at the Japan Association of Corporate Executive and Trustee of the IFRS foundation.

Mr Junichi Arihara

Junichi Arihara retired in 2025 after a distinguished career with the Daiwa Securities Group. Joining Daiwa Securities in 1987 after gaining his B.E. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Tokyo, he undertook a variety of roles including seven years in London at Daiwa Capital Markets Europe Limited, first as President & COO, then as Chairman. Returning to Tokyo in 2017, he became a Senior Managing Director and then Senior Executive Managing Director of the Daiwa Securities Group, where he was Chief Risk Officer and Chief Data Officer. He then served as Deputy President & Representative Director at Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd.  He also has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and is a Certified Member Analyst of the Securities Analysts Association of Japan.

Mr John Charlton-Jones

Mr John Charlton-Jones has nearly four decades of experience in the financial industry, specialising from the outset in Japanese equities. He worked firstly for James Capel/HSBC, including five years spent in Tokyo, and then for CLSA (UK) Limited, in both cases becoming managing director of Japan sales across UK/Europe for over fifteen years.  John had first lived in Japan in 1982-1984, teaching English and satisfying a long fascination with the country, after graduating from Cambridge University with a First Class degree in History. He is also a Non-Executive Director of the Chikara (CCJI) Japan Income & Growth Investment Trust PLC.

Ms Yoko Dochi

Ms Yoko Dochi is Managing Partner, SoftBank Group International. She was previously EMEA Head of Investor Relations for Toyota Motor Corporation from 2001 to 2018, where she supported the main Board as its spokesperson, strategic advisor and gatekeeper in relation to the global investment community. At Toyota, she earned a high reputation for managing complex stakeholder engagement through times of crises, turn-around and challenges from disruptive technologies.  As a former investment banker at World Bank in Washington D.C. and the Bank of Tokyo in Tokyo, Yoko has in-depth knowledge of finance and global capital markets.

She is a graduate of both Oxford University (MPhil in Management Studies) and Tokyo University (German Studies and International Relations).

Mr Keiichi Hayashi

Keiichi Hayashi is a senior counsel in the Litigation Department of Morrison Foerster Law Offices.

He is a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Japan, where he served for almost four years (April 2017–February 2021). Prior to that, he was a senior diplomat with Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he worked for over 40 years. A graduate of the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University, he joined the Ministry in 1974, serving for nearly a decade in the Ministry’s Office of Legal Advisors, which he eventually led. In addition, as a diplomat, he was assigned to seven overseas postings, including as Ambassador of Japan to the United Kingdom (2011–2016) and Ireland (2005–2008).

Professor Sachiko Kusukawa

Sachiko Kusukawa obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge where she is now Professor of History of Science. She is also a Fellow and the Dean of Trinity College, Cambridge. Her specialism is in early modern European history of science and visual culture. She has held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, Munich, University of Tokyo, and the Max Planck Institute for History of Science, Berlin. In 2014 she was awarded the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society (USA) for her book, Picturing the book of nature: image, text, and argument in sixteenth-century human anatomy and medical botany (2012).

She grew up in Wimbledon, Düsseldorf and Tokyo, and has lived in England since 1987.

Ms Rebecca Salter PRA

Ms Rebecca Salter is currently President of the Royal Academy of Arts. After graduating from Bristol Polytechnic, she studied at Kyoto City University of Arts in Japan, where she lived for 6 years. With a strong interest in printmaking, she has published two books on the subject: Japanese Woodblock Printing, 2001 and C, 2006. Rebecca Salter is recognised internationally, with group and solo exhibitions across the UK, Japan, USA, and Germany, as well as work in public and private collections.

In 2017 she was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy of Arts, and in 2019, when she was elected President of the Royal Academy of Arts, she became the first female President since the Academy was founded in 1768.

Dr Victoria Tuke

Dr Victoria Tuke is a former Daiwa Scholar who is currently Deputy Head, Indo-Pacific, Ministry of Defence. In addition to various roles in the Ministry Of Defence, she previously was Head of Japan, Republic of Korea and Mongolia Team, East Asia Department, Asia Pacific Directorate, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Victoria holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick, where she also completed her undergraduate education. Her doctoral thesis focused on an analysis of Japan’s modern-day foreign policy towards India, and included fellowships at the Institute for Defence and Strategic Analyses in New Delhi, and Waseda University, Tokyo.

Ms Jessie Turnbull

Ms Jessie Turnbull is an RIBA Chartered Architect, and a Registered Architect in the State of New York.  She has ten years of professional experience in London, Tokyo, and New York. She completed her architectural training at Cambridge University in the UK and Princeton University in the United States.

She was awarded the Daiwa Scholarship in 2005 during which time she studied Japanese and undertook her work placement with Atelier Bow-Wow.

Professor Sir Mark Walport FMedSci FRS

Professor Sir Mark Walport is an Honorary Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Imperial College London. He was previously Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation, and before this Government Chief Scientific Adviser (Permanent Secretary), Head of the Government Office for Science, and Head of Government Science and Engineering Profession. In 2009 he was awarded a Knight Bachelor for his services to medical research. He has also received a number of honours and prizes, most recently Honorary Fellow Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (2016), Fellow, Science Museum (2018) and Henry G Friesen International Prize in Health Research (2020). He obtained his medical education at Clare College, Cambridge and The Middlesex Hospital, London, and holds various degrees: MA, MB BChir, PhD, FRCP and FRCPath.