Simon Baptist is Editorial Director and Chief Economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit. Prior to his current role, he has held a number of other senior management and editorial positions in the business, including Managing Director for Asia, Regional Director of our Asia editorial team, Director of Global Forecasting, and Consulting Director in both Europe and Asia

Simon’s focus is on the global economy, national and international political developments, and public policy. He engages with business, government and international organisations, helping them to understand the operational and strategic implications of the EIU’s forecasts.

He has a doctorate in economics from and was a lecturer at Oxford University, along with degrees in economics and science from the University of Tasmania. His academic research investigated technology and the determinants of productivity in manufacturing firms.

Eric R. Johnson became Representative Director and CEO of JSR Corporation in 2019, where he now sets the company’s global vision and strategy, with a special focus on growth, globalization and sustainability.

Prior to becoming CEO, Eric was president of both JSR Micro, Inc. and JSR Life Sciences. In the life sciences business, he set and oversaw global strategy including spearheading the vision and establishment of JSR Life Sciences in 2014. He also shaped the division’s manufacturing and merger and acquisition strategy, growing JSR Life Sciences to a global group of companies with nearly 2000 employees.

From 2005 to 2019, Eric served as president of JSR Micro, Inc. where he was responsible for the day-to-day US operations and development and integration of global strategies. Prior to becoming president, he was chief operating officer and senior vice president of technology. In 2009 he became the first non-Japanese corporate officer of JSR Corporation.

Prior to joining JSR, Eric spent more than 13 years at Nikon Precision Inc., most recently as Vice President of Technology. During his time at Nikon, he spent more than a year in Nishi Ooi and Kumagaya, Japan assisting in the development and manufacture of Nikon’s first scanner systems.

Eric earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University and completed executive training at Harvard University. He holds 2 patents and is the author of several technical publications.

Ms. Kobayashi is Partner and Managing Director with EY-Parthenon, the strategic consulting arm within EY Strategy and Consulting in Tokyo. She is also the Asia-Pacific Strategy Execution Leader and the Japan representative for the Geostrategic Business Group. She has fifteen years of management consulting experience in Japan supporting both Japanese and multi-national corporations with a focus on growth strategy for the consumer and retail sector. Previously, Ms. Kobayashi worked as an analyst for a US activist fund. As a thought leader representing EY Japan, Ms. Kobayashi maintains an active media profile including regularly contributing Opinions to multiple international publishers. Ms. Kobayashi holds a BS and MS from the University of Tokyo, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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.