KOTARO TAMURA, Adjunct Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
Since 2014, Professor Tamura has been an adjunct professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, where he runs the Asian Geopolitics Program for business leaders and policymakers, which has been operated for 20 runs with over 500 graduates. Professor Tamura will be a visiting professor at Hitotsubashi University Business School, Japan's number-one business school by international rankings, starting in 2023. Professor Tamura worked as an M&A deal maker at Yamaichi Securities Co. After studying in the U.S., Professor Tamura became president of Osaka Daily News, Osaka Nichinichi Shimbun and was elected to the House of Councillors in 2002, serving as a member until 2010. He served as Parliamentary Vice-Minister of the Cabinet Office (Economy and Finance, Finance, Re-engagement, and Decentralization) in the first Shinzo Abe administration. Professor Tamura was a fellow at Yale University in 2010, a research associate at Harvard University in 2011, and the only Japanese researcher at the time at the RAND Corporation, a think tank that has produced more Nobel Prize Laureates (29) than any other organization in the world. In 2012, he became the first Japanese politician to be the leading character of a Harvard Business School case (case study). He has been a limited partner of venture capital firms in the U.S., Singapore, Israel, and Africa. He is a CNBC commentator, a principal advisor to RIMM, an AI-based ESG/SDGs scoring service for corporates and governments, and a member of the Advisory Board of GIIS, the world's largest Indian international school. He is also Asia Fellow at Milken Institute, U.S.A. Professor Tamura is also an angel investor in global start-ups, investing in Silicon Valley, Israel, Africa, Southeast Asia, and India, focusing on Web 3.0, climate tech, food tech, robotics, and education. Also invested in SpaceX and Twitter. He is the author of the bestselling book series "Don't Fight Idiots When You're Mad" which has sold over 750,000 copies and many other books. Professor Tamura graduated from Waseda University and obtained MBA from Keio University Graduate School of Business, an LLM from Duke University Law School, and an MA in International and Development Economics from Yale University Graduate School. He holds an AMP from Oxford University and an EMP from the University of Tokyo.
