Officers
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Masato Degawa, CFA
President
Mr. Degawa is president of CFA Society Japan. Mr. Degawa was the President and Representative Director of BlackRock Japan from 2010 until 2015. Prior to this assignment. Mr. Degawa worked for Societe Generale Asset Management Japan (currently Amundi Japan) as CEO and CIO for 8 years from 2002. Mr. Degawa started his career as an equity analyst at Morgan Stanley Japan in 1985. He subsequently worked for JP Morgan Investment Management in London as a senior fund manager from 1993. Currently, Mr. Degawa is a Chairman of iCapital Japan and a senior advisor for Affiliated Managers Goup (NYSE: AMG) and TA Associates. Mr. Degawa is also a board member of the United World College Japan National Committee. Mr. Degawa received BA and MA in Engineering Science and Economics from the University of Oxford. |
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Michinori Kanokogi, CFA
Vice President
Mr. Michinori (Mitch) Kanokogi serves as Head of Data, AI & Quant Research at Nissay Asset Management. He has been leading the research and development of AI-enabled investment solutions while driving digital transformation (DX) across the asset management business. Prior to his current role, Mitch established and led AQR Capital Management's investment operations in Japan. His professional experience also includes multi-manager investment at Russell Investments, equity portfolio management at UBS, and financial services consulting at PwC and Deloitte. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Tokyo, a Master of Engineering from Kyoto University, and an MBA from INSEAD. He has been a CFA charterholder since 2007 and has been an active member of CFA Society Japan. He is the author of “How Generative AI is Transforming Asset Management” and has translated several books in finance and AI, including "Advances in Financial Machine Learning", and "Expected Returns". |
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Fumihiko Imamura, CFA
Treasurer
Fumihiko Imamura, CFA joined CFA Japan Society's board of directors in November 2020. His contribution to the society began as a volunteer member for JIC 2020 working group, where he later joined the administrative team as a director and is a treasurer now. He has been engaged in financial market operation for the past 15 years with a highly successful track record in a wide range of IT project management and bilingual relationship management at Tokyo Stock Exchange and Osaka Exchange. Mr. Imamura holds an MBA from IESE Business School and an MA and BA in economics from Chiba University. He is an active rugby player in a local league.
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Bunka Kono, CFA
Secretary
Mr. Bunka Kono joined SMBC Nikko Securities in 2018 and is currently a member of the Global Markets Planning Department, where he is responsible for talent development, strengthening internal control systems, and fostering a sound corporate culture within the Global Markets Unit.Prior to his current role, he held various positions across multiple institutions. He began his career in 1998 as a retail sales representative at Yamatane Securities, which later became SMBC Nikko Securities. From 2002 to 2005, he engaged in proprietary trading of Japanese Government Bond (JGB) futures and options. From 2005 to 2015, he worked at Toyo Securities, conducting proprietary trading of JGB futures and options as well as equity futures and options. From 2015 to 2017, he was with SMBC Friend Securities (now SMBC Nikko Securities), handling sales of bonds and investment funds. From 2018 to 2022, he was engaged in portfolio management and risk management analysis for regional financial institutions at SMBC Nikko Securities. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Keio University in 1998. He earned his CFA charter in 2018, but has been involved in CFA Society Japan’s activities since the Japan Investment Conference in 2015. Since 2019, he has served as a grader for the Research Challenge, and from 2021 to 2023, he served as Chair of the Membership Committee. From 2024 to 2025, he served on the steering committee of the Membership Committee, where he was responsible for planning and managing joint volunteer recruitment events with four committees and strengthening collaboration among the committees. Since the establishment of the GARP Japan Chapter in 2023, he has also been serving as a committee member, contributing to the chapter’s operations.
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Directors
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Scott Anderson, CFA
Scott is a Director, Portfolio Manager/Analyst at Lazard Japan Asset Management K.K. (Tokyo). He manages Lazard’s KAGURA Japanese small cap equity strategy and covers the Japanese medical technology and specialty retail sectors. He began working in the investment field in 1998. Prior to joining Lazard in 2016, Scott was the head of Japanese equity research for Russell Investments. Prior to that, he was a senior manager with Nomura Asset Management and also worked in Nomura Fund Research and Technologies America as well as Nomura IBJ Global Investment Advisors. Previously, he worked as a consultant at AT Kearney and as a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank. Scott holds a B.A. in Political Science and Spanish from University of Minnesota and an M.S.F.S, in International Finance from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He is fluent in Japanese and Spanish. |
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Taku Arai, CFA
Taku is a Representative Director and President at Newton Investment Management Japan Ltd. He joined Newton as a Head of Japan in March 2025. Prior to that, Taku spent 13.5 years at Schroder Investment Management most recently as a Deputy Head of Japanese Equities where he was responsible for business and product management for the Japanese equity team. Previously, Taku was a portfolio manager at BNY Mellon Asset Management from March 2010 to July 2011, covering various products for Japanese clients. From July 2005 to February 2010, Taku held the roles of Director of Client Services and Equity Product Specialist at AllianceBernstein. Taku started his investment career in April 2001 as a portfolio manager for private bank clients and global equity products at Citigroup Asset Management. He also worked at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (MUFG Bank) for three years upon graduation (1998-2001). He is a CFA charterholder. He holds a Bachelor’s degree of Economics from Keio University, a Master’s degree of Economics from Chiba University, and an MBA from the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University.
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Akira Okada, CFA
Akira Okada is Managing Director at Jolt Capital, Growth Deeptech Private Equity headquartered in Paris. Prior to that, he worked for Manulife since 2004, as Chief Investment Officer for General Account from 2013 after having taken various senior roles at Manulife Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. Prior to joining Manulife, he was head of fixed income at Fukoku Capital Management, with managing pension money between 1999 and 2004. He started his investment career at Long Term Credit Bank of Japan as a proprietary dealer of various products, like fx, money market and derivatives in Hong Kong, New York and London since 1988. He holds bachelor degree of Law and MBA on Financial engineering from Hitotsubashi University in Japan. He is currently in charge of PR committee of CFA Society Japan as board director and volunteered as a mentor for Research Challenge several times. |
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Yasuko Sato, CFA
Yasuko Sato is Director and Client Portfolio Manager specialised in Japanese equity at Invesco Asset Management Japan, with nearly 20-year experience in the asset management industry. Yasuko previously spent nine years in London in a similar role at Asset Management One and JPMorgan Asset Management. Before being seconded to London, she worked as a research analyst covering the transportation sector for six years at JPMorgan Asset Management in Tokyo. She holds a B.A. in Literature from Waseda University and an M.A. in International Management (Hons) from Thunderbird School of Global Management. She has the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
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Statutory Auditors
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Makoto Hatta
Makoto Hatta serves as a statutory auditor of the CFA Society Japan. He was Managing Executive Officer of Sompo Asset Management until March 2024, supervising overall businesses related with investment trusts. He joined Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Co., Ltd. (currently known as Sompo Japan Insurance Inc.) in 1987 and has been engaged in investment management business since then. He earned a BA degree in Economics from University of Tokyo. |
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Shuichi Seo, CFA
Shuichi Seo is CEO of Business Japan Inc. and has been engaged in research based advisory services on capital and operational tie-ups for Japanese and foreign companies since 2017. He started his career with Nomura Research Institute in 1984 and was engaged in research and consulting in Tokyo, Sydney and London for 16 years. Then he conducted fund research with Mitsubishi Asset Brains till 2004, helped forming marketing strategy for Nikko Asset Management till 2007, advised corporate clients on M&A and corporate finance with IBS Securities till 2011, led institutional business with T&D Asset Management till 2016 and served FRONTEO Inc. as CFO till 2017.
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Akimi Matsuda, CFA
Akimi Matsuda, Ph.D, CFA, leads CFA Society Japan along with President and Secretary. She assumed her role in November 2020 and has more than 15 years of investment professional experience. Before the current role, she was leading University Liaison Committee (Research Challenge) at the Society and served as a “CFA ambassador “ or liaison between PIMCO Japan Ltd (a corporate sponsor since 2018) and CFA Society Japan. Ms. Matsuda serves as a senior credit analyst at Manulife Investment Management (Japan) Limited. Previously, she was a senior vice president and credit analyst at PIMCO Japan Ltd. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2013, she was a vice president in the structured products department within the global capital markets group at Nomura Securities Co., where she worked in solution sales. Previously, she was a senior associate and quantitative strategist in fixed income research at Lehman Brothers. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from New York University. She received an undergraduate degree from Sophia University. She earned her CFA charter in 2017. |