Ms. Kyoko Sakuma Asia Pacific Project Manager Ethibel Group

Kyoko Sakuma was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1965. She holds a Bachelor degree in International Relations and Development from Clark University, Mass., USA, a Master degree of Public Policy from Georgetown University, Washington D.C. and a MBA from Solvay Business School, Brussels, Belgium. She began her career in the European Commission as a consultant. She was involved in the research work on comparative corporate finance at the Director General of Economic and Financial Affairs (former DGII) and the Director-General of Enterprise (former DGIII) of the Commission between 1990-1992. She joined the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Belgium, in the late 1992 to work on the research projects called "EU-Japan relations", for which she principally examined the determinants of industrial and economic competitiveness. In 1994 she served as a short-term consultant to the OECD for the launch of a project entitled "the framework conditions for industry and corporate governance". In this project, she conducted a pilot study on G5 countries in exploring the suitable methodologies to assess the corporate governance structure across the OECD countries. She moved on to the Institute of Advanced Studies/United Nations University, Tokyo in 1996. As Research Associate, she coordinated the multilateral governance project and was also responsible for coordinating seminars on the subject of sustainable development for the Institute’s Ph.D fellows and the associate professors. Between 1996 and 1998 she served as Special Assistant to the Japanese Embassy in Vienna, where she assisted the Head of Economic Department for bilateral economic relations with Austria and Slovenia. She also conducted a comparative study on Austrian and Japanese industrial organisations and gave briefings to Japanese companies and governments. Before joining the Ethibel Group, she provided consultation to companies (mainly Japanese companies) on the EU legislative process as well as the EU legislations in the area of financial services and company laws at Hill and Knowlton International. The consultation ranged from newsletter production to advocacy to the EU institutions. At Ethibel Group, she leads the Asia Pacific project and is responsible for clients development and contacts in the Asia Pacific region. At Stock at Stake, the Ethibel’s subsidiary research company, she has a separate responsibility to coordinate the Japanese companies research.