Atsushi Ueno is a graduate of the Faculty of Law at University of Tokyo. He also studied at Peking University, Law Department and received a Master’s Degree from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. He began his diplomatic career with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1987, later serving as First Secretary at the Embassy of Japan in the USA and as First Secretary, then Counsellor at the Embassy of Japan in the People’s Republic of China.

Among his other charges in his diplomatic career are: Principal Deputy Director, then Senior Coordinator, Personnel Division - Minister’s Secretariat; Counsel for Treaties Negotiation - International Legal Affairs Bureau; Director, Third Division - Intelligence and Analysis Service; Director, Global Issues Cooperation Division and then Director, Aid Policy and Management Division - International Cooperation Bureau; Director, Overseas Establishment Division - Minister’s Secretariat and Director, First China and Mongolia Division - Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

More recently he served as Minister and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Japan in the Philippines, and as Minister and then Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Embassy of Japan in the People’s Republic of China.

Mr. Charles Zhan had led Buidu’s global business operation until the end of September 2022.

His role entailed driving key initiatives for the international market in defining company growth strategies, business development, marketing as well as partnerships.

Since Charles joined Baidu in 2010, he had developed and managed the company’s operations in Japan and other overseas markets. With the mission to facilitate the company development to new capabilities and new ventures, Charles will focus on expanding the company's presence into multiple regions by creating and forming strategic alliance with key business partners.

Prior to joining Baidu, Charles acquired extensive management and business development experience in multinational technology firms like Motorola, Nortel Networks and Cisco Systems, especially in the areas of devising and executing strategic plans to drive operational excellence on meeting the expectation of stakeholders.

Charles holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Science from Nankai University and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from University of California, San Diego.

Hiroko Maeda is a senior analyst of Sumitomo Corporation Global Research (SCGR), engaging in the analysis of Chinese politics, foreign policy, and security issues. She joined SCGR in 2020, bringing along her over two decades experience of doing research about modern Chinese politics and diplomacy.

After acquiring a master’s degree at Kyoto University for International Politics in 1999, she joined PHP Research Institute, Inc., where she carried out the projects related to IR in East Asia, Japan’s security policy, and Chinese security and foreign policy. She published the articles and comments on her field of expertise in various media.

Also, she studied Mandarin at Tsinghua University (2003-04), served as a visiting scholar at the Institute of the Contemporary China Studies in Beijing (2004-05), visiting professor at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan (2013), visiting fellow of the SPFUSA (2015-2018), research fellow at Asia Pacific Initiative (2018).

Vivian Tokai is the North Asia Director of the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network based in Tokyo and covering Japan and South Korea. She is responsible for programme development and client engagement. She works closely with c-level executives on key economic and political issues and industry-specific analysis to support their businesses in the region.

Vivian is a government affairs and public policy professional with 25 years of experience covering a wide variety of sectors, including energy, environment, aviation, transportation, defense, IT and digital economy. She has extensive senior leadership experience with a wide range of blue-chip multinational businesses in Japan. Prior to joining the Economist Group, she led Japan government relations activities at UPS, GE, Facebook, eBay and Honeywell. She was responsible for developing and executing strategic lobbying approaches, and ensuring strong relationships with regulators and government leaders.

Vivian has been active in a number of business organisations. She is a member of the Keizai Doyukai, Japan Association of Corporate Executives, and has held various board roles with the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. She has also been a visiting professor and lecturer at a number of Japanese universities including Chuo University and Showa Women’s University.

Her personal commitment is female empowerment. She served as Chief Diversity Officer at Citigroup in Japan and was selected as Women’s Leadership member at GE.

Vivian also possesses extensive experience in the media. She anchored a sports news segment of a daily evening news program at NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. She earned a Master of Science degree in Broadcast Journalism from School of Journalism, College of Communication, Boston University. She can speak Japanese and English, and introductory Chinese, Korean and French.