Saturday, November 21, 2009
Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St, San Francisco
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2 0 0 9 G A L A S P O N S O R S
We would like to thank each of our sponsors in 2009*:
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Patron
Access International Law Group
Consulate General of Japan
William P. Fuller
FX Global
Gerald & Keiko Horkan
Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Northern California
Kikkoman Sales USA, Inc.
KPMG
Morrison & Foerster LLP
NEC Electronics
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Takeda San Francisco, Inc.
Teraoka & Partners LLP Legal Counsel
Tokyo Express Co., Inc.
Individual Sponsors
David A. Makman
Fujitsu Management Services of America, Inc.
Houlihan Lokey Investment Banking Services
MOL America, Inc.
Nobuko Saito, Cross Cultural Communication
Otsuka America, Inc.
David Lyon & Joan Talbert
John & Joyce Thomas
*Sponsor list current as of September 16, 2009.
>>topH O N O R E E B I O G R A P H I E S
One of Japan’s most distinguished diplomats, Ambassador Shunji Yanai has played a key role in US-Japan relations, culminating with his term as Japan’s Ambassador to Washington from 1999 to 2001. For many Northern Californians, however, their memories of the dynamic ambassador date back to 1987–1990, when he came to San Francisco as Consul General of Japan. A frequent visitor to the Bay Area, he is founder and chairman of the Tokyo-based Japan Alumni Association of Northern California.
Retired now from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yanai has not slowed down. Today he is a Judge on the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a Director of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Senior Advisor to the Rector of the United Nations University and Advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. A 1961 law graduate of the University of Tokyo, he also teaches law at Waseda and Chuo universities.
Born into a diplomatic family, Yanai grew up in Germany, Switzerland and Colombia, where his family was held after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Witnessing the devastated ruins of Tokyo after the war, he concluded that diplomacy was the path to peace and resolved to become a diplomat himself. He went on to serve in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for more than forty years, and led Japan’s peace-keeping operations in Cambodia and the Congo as Executive Secretary of the PKO Office.
TOICHI TAKENAKA
President & CEO,
Takenaka Corporation
As the 17th generation of the Takenaka family to take the reins of Japan’s oldest and largest architecture, engineering and construction firm, Mr. Toichi Takenaka has run Takenaka Corporation as President and CEO for almost 30 years. Under his leadership, the nearly 400-year-old family-run company has won multiple international design and environmental awards.
Along the way, it has created some of Japan’s most prominent architectural landmarks, from Tokyo Tower to today’s popular Tokyo Midtown and Shin-Marunouchi Building complexes. Takenaka has even helped shape San Francisco’s skyline, building the Hotel Nikko in 1987, just one of a host of projects the firm has undertaken throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas. Today the corporation has about 8,000 employees and more than 20 offices throughout the world, but its first foreign operation was established in San Francisco in 1960, nearly 50 years ago.
Mr. Takenaka is no stranger to San Francisco. Chairing the Japan-America Society of Osaka in 2005–2007, he visited San Francisco in 2007 to mark the 50th year of Osaka-San Francisco sister city relations, and rode in the Cherry Blossom parade.
A graduate of Konan University in economics in 1965, Mr. Takenaka received an MBA from Michigan State University in 1968. An avid mountain climber and a skilled golfer, he is the father of three successful children.