Takehiko Nakao keynote speaker

Takehiko Nakao is a Japanese former civil servant who served as the ninth president of the Asian Development Bank between 2013 and early 2020. He is Adviser, Sumitomo Corporation and Chairman, Center for International Economy and Strategy. He is also a board member (external) of the Daiichi Life Insurance Ltd. He teaches international economic policies and development economics as visiting professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy at Tokyo University and National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (Tokyo).

Nakao was a career civil servant with the Finance Ministry of Japan which he joined in 1978. During his career, Nakao served variously as Minister at the Embassy of Japan in Washington D.C. and as an economic advisor at the International Monetary Fund in the mid-1990s. Before his nomination for the presidency of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Nakao was Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs, which is the senior most civil service appointment within Japan's Finance Ministry. As Japan's top currency official, Nakao oversaw the Japanese government's largest ever currency market intervention following the sharp appreciation of the yen in 2011. He was also the Japanese finance deputy at the G7 and G20 summits and finance ministers & central bank governors meetings in 2011-13.

Nakao holds a degree in economics from the University of Tokyo where he later taught international finance during 2010-2011. He also holds an MBA degree from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2008, he authored the book America’s Economic Policy: Can it Sustain its Strength?.

As ADB President, Nakao identified securing financial resources for the ADB and promoting public-private partnerships as focus areas and called for a “more innovative, more inclusive and more integrated” development of the Asia-Pacific region. During his period as president, the ADB continued its focus on infrastructure, environment, regional integration, inclusiveness and gender equality, cofinancing initiatives and internal reforms to overcome the ADB's resource crunch and to streamline its performance.

In January 2020, Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte awarded Nakao the Order of Sikatuna, the Philippines' highest civilian recognition, with the rank of Grand Cross, or Datu, in recognition of his services to the Philippines in supporting the national development program during his period as president of ADB.