Chairman & President of CMO Management Institute, Member of the House of Councilors,
Chairman & Chief Managing Partner, Global Innovators, LLC.

Iwao Matsuda has been Member of the House of Councilors (Upper House of the Japanese Diet) representing Gifu District since 1998. He served in the Cabinet as Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy, Food Safety and Information Technology from November 2005 to September 2006. He is a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Before Mr. Matsuda became Member of the House of Councilors, he served three terms in the House of Representatives between 1986 and 1996 from Gifu District. He served in the Cabinet as the first Senior Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry from January 2001 to September 2001, and as the Vice Minister of Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports from 1991 to 1992. Prior to his political career, Mr. Matsuda served the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) between 1960 and 1981, during which time he was assigned to a variety of positions: Director of the Small Enterprise Division, Director of the Export Division, Director of the Public Relations Division, and Director General of the Nagoya Branch. From 1973 to 1976, he served at Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in New York City. Throughout his public life, Mr. Matsuda has been at the forefront of efforts to be very active in international programs, and he has been an active participant in discussions with foreign politicians, diplomats, and academics. He started the US-Japan Legislative Exchange Program, a semiannual meeting between Members of the US Congress and the Japanese Diet, and has served as Chair for the Japanese delegation for two decade. In 1997, Matsuda was appointed as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Washington University in USA, where he taught "The Politics of Reform in Japan".

Vice President of CMO Management Institute
President & CEO, CMO Worldwide Inc.

Jun founded CMO Worldwide Inc. in 2007 after having had worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers Consultants (formerly BearingPoint), as a Director of Strategy and Process. Before PricewaterhouseCoopers Consultants, he worked as VP of Asia Pacific and GM of Japan branch. Before joining Harmonic, he was a group account director for global companies including Toyota, Intel, Microsoft and Apple Computer at leading ad and marketing agencies, Dentsu and Dentsu USA Los Angeles. Jun holds a B.S. at Information Science from University of Tokyo and Master’s degree at Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1995. Jun was also visiting scholar of Oregon Graduate Institute in Management Science in 1996. Jun published a book, titled, “Chief Marketing Officer” in 2006 and a Japanese edition of “What Sticks” in 2008 by Diamond Publishing.

Chairman, Marunouchi Brand Forum

Hotaka is the Project Chairman of Brand Japan, which offers the highest scale of brand investigation in Japan, since 2004. Before joining Brand Japan, Hotaka served as a professor of marketing at Tokyo University from 1989 to 2004. He became an associate professor of marketing at Tokyo University in 1983. Before that, he served as an assistant professor and associate professor at Osaka University since 1975. He has been a guest professor at University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, University of California, Berkeley, Stockholm School of Economics and many others. Hotaka graduated from the International Christian University in 1970. Hotaka is the author of many books, namely Marketing Science (University of Tokyo Press, 1987), Principles of Power Brands (Diamond 1998), 100 years of Brand Principals Learned by Zeami (Softbank Creative, 2009).

Professor of Graduate School of Commerce and Management, Hitotsubashi University

Taro Kamioka studied cognitive science and artificial intelligence at graduate school of behavioral science, Hokkaido University. Just after the graduation in 1990, he started his academic career as assistant professor at Hitotsubashi University and promoted to associate professor and then the current position.
He has now a great variety of research interest from cognitive science, human-computer interaction, offshore software development, IT management, e-commerce, to marketing
He has been involved in a lot of projects with private companies for example in marketing field, research program on interactive agencies in the US in 1997 with Dentsu, ROI measurement in advertisement with VVC group by Toyota motor in 2001, and so on.

Associate Professor of Department of Economics, Seikei University

Hikaru Yamamoto has been an assistant professor of marketing at Seikei University since 2008 instructing Internet Marketing and Personal Influence on the Internet. She received her bachelor`s degree from Keio University in politics (1996), and after that worked at a foreign advertising agency. She received her master`s degree (2001) and doctoral degree (2004) in marketing from Tokyo University. Hikaru’s papers include Finding Influencers and Word-of-Mouth Diffusion (Marketing journal(2008)) and Key Person of Word-of-Mouth Diffusion and How to Find the Key Person (Marketing Journal(2008)).

Creative Management Director, Global Marketing & Communication
FAST RETAILING CO.,LTD.

Katsube was born in Tokyo in 1974. He graduated in Economics from Keio University in 1998. After his success at marketing at a financial institution and automobile company, he joined FAST RETAILING CO., LTD. in November 2005.He has undertaken many projects such as “UNIQLOCK”, “UNIQLO TRY”, “UNIQLO MARCH”, and “UNIQLO ONLINE STORE.” These have been awarded the Grand Prix for Cannes Cyber Lions, Cannes Titanium, NY One Show Interactive, Clio, NY ADC, D&AD as well as a multitude of others. He has been in his present position since November 2008.

Project Professor of Global COE Program, University of Tokyo,

Over 16 years agency leadership in Japan working with some of the world’s most valuable brands across numerous categories. He focused on brand strategy cascading consumer / customer / category insights for both domestic and multinational clients alike, to prioritise drive marketing effectiveness. He was, for a number of years, the only (Asian) Japanese member of IBM’s Global Marketing Advisory Council for mobile products. At Tokyo University, he is now part of their Global COE program to ensure closer and entrepreneurial, collaboration between academia and commerce. He received his MSc, Mathematical Statistics from University of Birmingham. He was Professor, Decision Sciences at London Business School for 8 years. He was Vice Chairman at McCann Erickson Japan and Chief Strategy Officer Asia-Pacific at McCann Erickson, Chief Strategy Officer Asia-Pacific at GREY group and Chairman & CEO at GREY group Japan.