Takeshi Soda

Director, Oil & Gas Division

Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry (METI)

Mr. Soda has served as Director, Oil and Gas Division since December 2019. He has long and rich experience of energy and climate change policy. Most recently, he served as Director, International Affairs Division since July 2019. Prior to that, he transferred to the U.S. and served as the Special Adviser to METI and Director of JETRO New York between 2016 and 2019. As a senior liaison between METI and the US government, he devoted himself to create Japan-US Strategic Energy Partnership (JUSEP), agreed between two top leaders of both countries in November 2017. As of now, JUSEP is the core of Japan-US economic cooperation and of Indo-Pacific strategy of both countries.
Before transferring to the U.S., Mr. Soda, serving as Executive Secretary to the Special Advisor of the Cabinet Office Minister in charge of overcoming population decline and revitalizing local economy, led the policy-making process and coordinated the government-wide activities related to revitalizing local economy between 2014 and 2016.
Mr. Soda joined METI in 1997. He spent almost his years in the field of energy, international economy, and financial affairs. He served to plan energy policy of Japan by deciding and allocating all energy budgets of METI for two years, which made him an expert of energy policy.
He also oversaw the long-term strategy of international trade policy for four years, contributing to form Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI), Export Credit Agency of Japan, in 2001.
Mr. Soda received an MBA in 2004 from the Goizueta Business School of Emory University in Atlanta, GA, USA. He obtained a BA in philosophy from the University of Tokyo in 1997.

Toshiyuki Shirai

Director, Advanced Energy System Division, Agency for Natural Resources and Energy

Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry (METI)

Atsunori Takeuchi

Executive Officer - Senior General Manager of LNG Optimization & Trading Department

Tokyo Gas

Hitoshi Nishizawa

Executive Officer, Senior Operating Officer, Optimization Dept.

JERA

Toshi Nishizawa is Executive Officer, Senior Operating Officer, Optimization Department, in charge of LNG procurement of JERA. Toshi has been with JERA (and formerly TEPCO) for more than 30 years.  Prior to taking the current role in May 2019 he was Managing Director of JERA Australia and affiliates in Perth, where he managed several LNG upstream companies and investments there.  Throughout his career Toshi worked for various aspects of LNG businesses: numbers of long/short-term/spot procurement negotiations, LNG upstream businesses including the first participation in the history by TEPCO, and related JV/commercial/financial/corporate aspects.  He has an MBA from Cornell University and a BA from University of Tokyo.

Nobuo Tanaka

Special Advisor

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation

Nobuo Tanaka is President of The Sasakawa Peace Foundation as of April 1^st, 2015. He had been a former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) from 2007 to August 2011. He began his career in 1973 in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and has served in a number of high-ranking positions, including Director-General of the Multilateral Trade System Department. He was Minister for Industry, Trade and Energy at the Embassy of Japan, Washington DC. He has also served twice as Director for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI) of the Paris-based international organization, OECD.

Yukari Niwa Yamashita

Managing Director

The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ)

Yukari Niwa Yamashita is the IAEE President for 2020 and she is a Board Member for the Institute of Energy Economics Japan (IEEJ) and Director, in Charge of the Energy Data and Modelling Center. She is responsible for quantitative and qualitative analyses on energy policy issues. In the aftermath of the tsunami and nuclear incident, her team’s analyses and recommendations contributed greatly to the electricity saving campaign and debate regarding a national energy mix for Japan. Annual IEEJ's Outlook is globally recognized for its timely analyses and pragmatic approach towards climate change.

Tom Earl

Chief Commercial Officer

Venture Global LNG

Tom Earl is the Chief Commercial Officer of VG LNG Marketing, LLC. Tom previously served as Vice President at the international oil company Total, focusing on the development of its global LNG business.

After graduating from City University in London with a degree in Engineering, Tom joined Total’s newly formed gas marketing and trading team in 1998. After various responsibilities within the trading division of the newly combined Total, Elf and Petrofina operations, he managed the natural gas option desk and gas trading desk. Tom successfully led significant commercial negotiations on long-term gas and LNG contracts in countries such as Russia, Norway and Qatar.

In 2006, Tom was appointed Head of Electricity Trading at Total where he led a significant expansion into newly opened power markets across Europe. In 2011, Tom moved to Houston, where he was appointed as head of Total’s North America commodity trading business, including its LNG, gas, power, coal, petcoke and LPG operations. Tom also represented Total in its US LNG liquefaction transactions from 2012 to 2015.

In 2015, Tom was appointed Vice President of Development for Total’s global LNG activities. Tom led Total’s most recent and highly regarded global expansion into new LNG markets. This work has included innovative new LNG terminal projects and new downstream asset transactions across the world.

Katsumi (Ken) Kuroda

Senior Advisor

Cheniere Marketing Ltd

Mr. Kuroda spent more than 30 years at Mitsubishi Corporation’s Energy Business Group including assignments in NY, General Manager of Global Gas Unit in Tokyo, and SVP, Energy Business for Europe, Middle East, Africa, and CIS Region in London. He joined BG Group in January 2013 to open its Tokyo Office.  He started working for Cheniere Marketing Ltd. in December 2016 being based in Tokyo mainly to support its LNG marketing activities and stakeholder engagements in Japan.