Last week at Global Agenda Seminar at Academy Hills, guest speaker Yuji Kano spoke, who is the Investment Officer of International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. We always give assignment to the participants, together with the reference materials, so that they read the materials related to the organizations our guest speakers work for and think about some solutions. This time, participants were supposed come up with an a project for poverty reduction in Africa within a certain budget. To make the assignment as real as possible, we asked participants to assume that they work for one of the Japanese major trading companies. Kano San also contributed with an overview of what IFC does, why it’s important and all the reasons he has been involved in the organization over the years.
Yoko Ishikura is a Professor at Hitotsubashi University ICS in the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy in Japan. She has held positions as a professor at the School of International Politics, Economics and Business of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, as a consultant at McKinsey and Company Inc. Japan and a visiting professor at Darden School.
Professor Ishikura is a consultant to a number of multinational companies and has been a frequent speaker at management conferences, seminars, and workshops throughout the world. She was a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee for the Japanese government and the International Competitiveness Commission for METI. She is currently a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum.
She is the author of Strategic Shift from OR choices to AND paradigm, Building Core Skills of Organization , and the co-author of the following publications: Managing Diversity in the 21st Century, Strategy for Cluster Initiatives in Japan , and Building a Career to the World Class Professionals – all in Japanese. Her books in English include: Asian Advantage, Hitotsubashi on Knowledge Management and Trust and Antitrust in Asian Business Alliances.
Professor Ishikura’s current research interests are focused on global competition, innovation, and knowledge management. She received her BA from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan; MBA from Darden School, University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia; and DBA from Harvard Business School.
