RISE 2019 Conference

Mr. Kiyoshi Murakami, born and raised at Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, has been serving as Special Representative of Mayor & Senior Executive Advisor (San-Yo in Japanese) to the City of Rikuzentakata since April 2017, and Special Advisor to the President and Visiting Professor at Iwate University. Prior to this, he has extensive experiences in human resources management at multinational financial institutions such as BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, PwC, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, and Citibank. He also served as Director of Human Resources Management at United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva from 2000 to 2005. He is a Goodwill Ambassador of City of Rikuzentakata and Cultural Ambassador of Iwate Prefecture. He has also serves as President of AidTAKATA, Non-for-Profit Organization focusing on the Reconstruction and Development of Rikuzentakata including Emergency FM Radio Station (FM Rikuzentakata), City Mascot (Takata-no-Yume-chan) Operations, and Multi-cultural Exchange programs for local students since 2011. He published his first book in Japanese, Rikuzentakata kara Sekai wo Kaete Iku (Promoting global changes through the development of Rikuzentakata), March 2016, and delivered lectures and speeches at Harvard Kennedy School, UN Conferences on Disaster Risk Reduction, and other institutions globally. Mr. Murakami received BA in Government from University of San Francisco, USA, and MBA from Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo. He is an active member of the America-Japan Society, Tokyo, and the Society of Human Resources Management, USA. He is married with his wife, Wakako Murakami Ph.D, a professor at Chuo University.