Board of Advisors


We are pleased that the following distinguished individuals have kindly agreed to serve on our Board of Advisors and share their experience and wisdom with The Delphi Network:

 

Ernie Higa

 

We are delighted to add the legendary Ernie Higa to our Board of Advisors. Ernie is one of the most successful American entrepreneurs in Japan. He started importing lumber and medical devices before achieving striking success by starting and then selling the Domino’s Pizza franchise in Japan. He is now spearheading Wendy’s re-entry into Japan. He is a Columbia University graduate and a member of Keizai Doyukai, the powerful Japanese business group. We believe Ernie’s expertise in establishing Western brands in Japan and his deep connections with Japanese business represent a great resource for our members.

 

Thierry Porte

 

Thierry has been on the cutting edge of Japan’s international and financial business scene for decades, rising to prominence after becoming President of Shinsei Bank, which emerged from the embers of bankrupt Japanese bank following a significant investment by JC Flowers. This transaction, one of the most closely watched in Japanese corporate history was closely tracked by FT journalist Gillian Tett, and became the basis of “Saving The Sun”, a deep analysis of the background and consequences of this dramatic episode. Prior to that, Thierry had a long and successful career at Morgan Stanley. He also has an MBA from Harvard.

 

Michael Woodford MBE

 

It is a great honour to have Michael Woodford join our board of advisors. Michael represents many of the qualities we take very seriously at the Delphi Network, especially trust, courage and integrity. These are qualities without which the Delphi Network could not function, although admittedly there is less scope to show courage in normal business than Michael had to demonstrate during his ordeal as the whistle-blowing CEO of Olympus. Michael also makes a great symbol for the Delphi Network because he navigated the difficult area between Japanese and Western corporate cultures, issues which DN members are facing on a daily basis. His experiences still fascinate Japanese and Western observers alike and will surely be mined for insights for many years to come.

 

R. Taggart Murphy

 

R. Taggart Murphy is the author of Japan and the Shackles of the Past (Oxford: 2014) and, with Akio Mikuni, of Japan’s Policy Trap (Brookings: 2002), voted the best professional and scholarly book of 2002 in the economics category by the American Association of Publishers. He is also the author of The Weight of the Yen (Norton: 1996), is a frequent contributor to the New Left Review, and has published articles in the Harvard Business Review, the London Review of Books, Fortune, the National Interest, the New Republic, and elsewhere. Taggart retired in March 2016 from his position as Professor of International Political Economy in the MBA Program in International Business at the Tokyo Campus of the University of Tsukuba.

 

Robert Whiting

 

World-renowned authority on Japanese baseball and Japanese organized crime.
He forged his reputation with ‘You Gotta Have Wa’, a book which generates deep insights into Japan via an analysis of Japan’s love affair with baseball, and it’s tendency to infuse the game with Zen and martial arts concepts. He followed this up with a meticulous and rich examination of  an Italian-American former soldier’s rise through the ‘Tokyo Underworld’ – the name of his book. Numerous other works on Japanese baseball followed, but he is now writing a book on the history of post-war Tokyo, in which the 1964 Olympics feature prominently.

 

Roger Pulvers

 

Roger Pulvers is an acclaimed author, playwright, theatre director, translator and journalist. He has published over forty in Japanese and English and has worked extensively in film and television. He was assistant to director Nagisa Oshima on the film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, starring David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Roger received the prestigious Kenji Miyazawa Prize in 2008, the Noma Award for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 2013 and the Yasushi Inoue Award in 2015. He divides his time between Sydney, Australia, and Japan.

 

Robert Dujarric

 

Director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo.
Robert is an expert commentator on military, historical and comparative political economic matters as they pertain to Japan. He also has access to an extraordinary network of experts, partly thanks to running the legendary public lecture programme at Temple University.

 

Glen S. Fukushima

 

Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress (CAP; Washington, D.C.)
Since 2012, Glen has been a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C. think tank. Before that, he spent 22 years as a business executive based in Tokyo leading one European and four American prominent multinational corporations (including AT&T and Airbus). During this time, he was elected Vice President and President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. Before entering the business world, he served in Washington, D.C. at USTR (Office of the US Trade Representative), as Director of Japanese Affairs and Deputy Assistant US Trade Representative for Japan and China. Bilingual and bicultural, he was educated in the US at Stanford and Harvard and in Japan at Keio and Tokyo University. He has been a visiting professor at Sophia, Waseda, and Kyoto University and has served on numerous corporate boards in Japan, Europe, and the United States.

 

Mike Alfant

 

Mike Alfant is emeritus president of the American Chamber of Commerce and generally considered to be one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Tokyo, having sold at least one company for a very large profit and set up scores of others across the region. His has a questioning, ever-curious mind and has been kind enough to provide advice to DN members, even before taking on this role.
His profile can be found here.

 

Yoshi Fujikawa, Professor & Faculty in Charge of External Affairs, Hitotsubashi ICS

 

Yoshi received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his Phd from Pennsylvania State University. He is an expert on the interaction between Asian and global business (especially marketing) and one of the most charismatic lecturers in Tokyo.

Alberto Moel VP, Strategy and Partnerships at Veo Robotics.

 

Alberto is a global authority on industrial robotics, an area in which Japan leads the world.
He has a Phd from MIT and has worked at the cutting edge of this field for decades. He is an analyst, thinker and founder.

Robert A. Madsen

 

Senior Fellow, Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Graham Davis

 

Graham Davis has lived in Japan for 20 years. For much of that time he headed the Tokyo office of The Economist in both editorial and commercial functions, as well as having Asia Pacific responsibility for Thought Leadership and Events product areas. He also spent a period as head of the China region. Prior to that he had worked in investment banking, with a career which led from London to Frankfurt and finally Tokyo. He currently splits time between Tokyo, where he is working on a number of Tokyo 2020 Olympics projects, and Yakushima, where his wife runs a guesthouse, Cottage Davis Yakushima.

Tom Miller

 

Tom Miller is a senior analyst at Gavekal Research, a global economic research service, and managing editor of China Economic Quarterly, published by its sister service Gavekal Dragonomics. Tom was educated at the University of Oxford and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, and spent two years studying Mandarin in Beijing. A former journalist, he has reported from a dozen countries in Asia.
His new book, China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building Along the New Silk Road, will be published in February 2017. His first book, China’s Urban Billion: The Story Behind the Biggest Migration in Human History (Zed, 2012), was translated into Chinese. After fourteen years living in China, Tom now divides his time between England and Asia.

 

Dr Paul J. Scalise

 

Paul is one of the best-informed and articulate energy experts on Japan and Asia. He has commented and written frequently on energy issues in the wake of Japan’s 3/11 disaster. He possesses unshakable intellectual integrity, and focuses on the scientific evidence rather than pushing a certain ideology.

 

Dr Albert X. Kirchmann

 

Dr Albert Kirchmann left his roles as CEO and then Chairman of the Board at Daimler Trucks Asia and Mitsubishi FUSO in 2016. Now based in his native Germany, we are delighted to welcome him to our Board of Advisers. Albert acquired rich executive experience of Japan in the course of globalizing the hitherto largely local operations of FUSO, which was acquired by Daimler in 2005. We are lucky to have someone of such calibre ready and able to advise our members and we look forward to working with him in 2018. Albert is also an expert on the future of transportation and the different ways new technology will affect the industry. An excellent account of his Japan adventures can be found here:https://goo.gl/kMpWvr

 

Mitch Murata

 

Mitch is one of the most brilliant and networked individuals in Tokyo. We are proud to have him on our Board of Advisors. Mitch often helps senior government officials and business leaders obtain those unique and authentic insights which official briefing papers often leave out. He graduated from Georgetown University, where he also obtained an MBA. He is the Managing Partner at Black Pearl Partners.