Profile of Chairman Nakahara Nobuyuki Nakahara Nobuyuki, current Chairman of the JKA, is a distinguished Japanese business and financial leader who began his career in karate in the mid-1950s, when he joined the Karate Club at prestigious Tokyo University, the premier university in Japan. Graduating from there in 1957, he went on to Harvard University in the United States to earn a Masters’ Degree in political economy and government. Subsequently he made his name in the Japanese oil industry, where he served in a number of important executive capacities, including that of President and Chief Operating Officer of one of Japan’s foremost oil companies. At the same time he was writing and translating books on oil and business themes, contributing articles to business periodicals, and lecturing on business and finance at Japanese universities, including his alma mater, Tokyo University. He was, in addition, appearing in the interview columns of Japan’s biggest newspapers and on TV, where he continues to appear today. Ever since the first oil crisis in 1973 he has also been consulting with and advising a steady succession of Japanese Prime Ministers and other Cabinet Ministers on oil questions, and also on policy matters of a more general economic and financial nature. From 1998 through 2002 he served as a Member of the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan. After that he was asked by Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro to play a key role in the task force which formulated the “Program for Financial Revival”—a set of strategies designed to solve the problem of non-performing loans among the Japanese mega-banks and bring the Japanese economy back to life. Currently he is serving as Senior Adviser to the Government of Japan’s Financial Supervision Agency. He is serving as well as the Chairman of a number of scholarship and social welfare foundations, including the famed American Studies Foundation, which provides financial assistance for Japanese scholars and institutions engaged in U.S. studies. And on top of everything else he has been working tirelessly throughout his entire adult life to advance in karate, ultimately attaining the rank of 9th degree black belt. He was appointed Chairman of the JKA in 1986. Under his initiative and leadership the JKA finally succeeded (in 2000) in buying land and a multi-story building, and establishing a large and spacious world headquarters and dojo. He is the longest-serving Chairman in JKA history.