Seminar Schedule

James Ian Yellowlees
Global Daigaku.com CEO

Mr. Yellowless earned a B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1985 and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo (1989 and 1996 respectively) in Modern Japanese Politics and Economics. He has served as a Commercial Officer with Government of British Columbia, Canada's Tokyo office and as the Japan-Korean region's representative for the Asian Pacific Foundation. Following this, he became a business consultant and a Director of the Canadian Education Alliance, He is currently the CEO of Global Daigaku.com.

Chikako Hiura
Temple University Japan Campus, Management Education Program
Program Development Coordinator

After working for a broker house upon graduating from university, Ms. Hiura studied international business in the USA. Since returning to Japan, she worked for three years in the HR section at the International University of Japan and then at the instruction section. For more than 10 years, she has been at the registrar's office for the MBA programs, student recruitment, entrance examinations and hiring instructors. She is currently in charge of marketing and supporting instructors and students since November 2006.

Kazushi Wakabayashi
The Kenichi Ohmae Graduate School of Business Leader of MBA Programs

Mr. Wakabayashi graduated from Albright College (USA). After working on international and regional conflict resolution at the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention, he became the general leader of MBA programs at the Kenichi Ohmae Graduate School of Business. He is also certified by the Dr. B. Fisher of International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (ICCCR) at Columbia University and has worked as an authorized trainer on accommodative negotiation teaching at companies domestically and abroad as well as at (NPO) Isshin-juku.

Koichi Okubo
Anaheim University, Akio Morita School of Business
Director, Marketing & PR

After working for Sumitomo Bank for over 14 years, Mr. Okubo entered the University of Southern California to earn MBA. Upon returning from the U.S. and working for foreign companies in Japan such as PrinceWaterhouseCoopers, Pacific Century CyberWorks, etc, he went on to establish his own business as an independent financial advisor. Currently, Mr. Okubo manages the operation of the Business School of Anaheim University.

Kayoko Yamamoto
Sumitomo 3M (Japan)
Senior Manager、Corporate Planning & Business Development

After graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993, Ms. Yamamoto joined 3M in the US. She was transferred to Sumitomo 3M of Japan in 1998, and transfered to the Marketing division in 2001 and the Six Sigma Promotion division in 2004. During that time, she studied and earned an MBA at McGill MBA Japan in 2005. In 2006, she moved to the Corporate Planning & Business Development office where she currently works as the senior manager.

Sachiko Fumoto
Chief Editor Nikkei WOMAN

Graduating from Tsukuba University, Ms. Fumoto started working at Nikkei Home Publishing in 1984, and was engaged in launching “Nikkei Women” in 1988. After being editor of monthly magazines for housewives “Shopping” and “Good housekeeping”, an ecology magazine “Nikkei Eco 21”, and an additional volume of Nikkei Women “Kokokara”, she was transferred into the editorial office of Nikkei Women in 2003, and has been working in her current position since 2006. She is also the mother of two children.

Tomoko Sekiguchi
Johnson & Johnson K. K.
Manager, Process Excellence

From 1997 Ms. Sekiguchi had worked at a Japanese company managing international conferences. Since 2000, she had been responsible for the coordination of in-house business training programs at the leadership development division within the HR Department in General Electric Co. (GE). Following this, she moved within the company to be in charge of Six Sigma training for the Asia region. Now she in charge of support of on-site process improvement and works as a business training instructor. Ms. Sekiguchi has studied abroad in the UK.

Masayo Hobo
Oracle Corporation Japan
Executive Officer Oracle University

After working for IBM Japan, Ms. Hobo studied abroad to earn MBA leading to joining IBM United States as a consultant. Afterward she became a special assistant board member at the head office of SAP in Germany and then as an operating officer at Microsoft. Currently Ms. Hobo is responsible for training at Oracle Japan and focus on the training of HR personnel in various IT enterprises. She is also a special-appointed professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology's Graduate School Department of Social Science and part-time lecturer at the Graduate School of International Management at Aoyama Gakuin University.

Yasuhiro Ishibashi
Barclays Capital Japan Limited
AP Structuring Director

Mr. Ishibashi was born in 1972. After earning his B.A. (1995) and M.B.A. (1997) from Tokyo University, he joined Deutsche Grenfell (currently Deutsche Bank). He has been continuously involved in the development of derivatives and is currently in change of interest-rate, credit, stocks, commodities, etc. He has been in his current position since 2004.