Thomas R. Zengage earned his B.A. from Columbia College at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he studied Chinese. After graduate studies in Japanese at the University of Washington in Seattle, he earned his MBA there as well. Fluent in Japanese, Zengage has had an extensive career in investor relations, web and social media communications, complex situations communications, issues management, governance consulting, and strategy consulting in Japan, working both on behalf of leading Japanese and non-Japanese corporations and other organizations. He was previously CEO and principal shareholder of IBI, Inc., Japan’s pioneering PR and IR firm. He sold IBI to LSE-traded WPP plc, and became CEO of WPP’s Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Japan), Inc. Zengage later served as CEO of the Japan subsidiary of Edelman Public Relations, the world’s largest independent PR agency. He established consultancy Pacific Communicators, Inc. in Tokyo to specialize in high-level strategic communications and issues management. Zengage founded Investor Impact, Inc. to offer the latest IR and integrated corporate communications strategies and tools to strengthen relationships between Japanese issuers and global stakeholders, thereby boosting Return on IR (ROIR). Zengage is a member of the Japan Investor Relations Association, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, and other professional associations as well. Writing in Japanese, he is the author of the book Sore Demo Yen no Seiki (Tokyo: Kodansha), which contains an analysis of the long-term factors driving Japan’s economy.

Undergraduate degree from the School of Law at Japan’s Senshu University. Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Commerce and Ph.D. Program degree from the Graduate School of Economics at Senshu University. Research topics include corporate governance, corporate IR strategy, and the measurement of IR effectiveness. Member of the Japan Investor Relations Association, the Japan Academic Society of Investor Relations, and the Association of Behavioral Economics and Finance. After beginning her career in the finance division of a well-known Japanese entertainment company, Rika Sumi engaged in the formulation and implementation of global IR and PR strategies at various companies including a management consulting firm in Japan, a U.S.- affiliated financial consulting firm, and a U.K.-affiliated PR company. In addition to shareholder identification and as well as corporate awareness and reputation surveys, Ms. Sumi has considerable experience and expertise in financial results presentation and other domestic and overseas IR and PR meetings, analyst coverage promotion and proxy voting programs, and related activities including top management presentation training. From a client-side IR experience perspective, she served as the Investor Relations Officer in charge of the Initial Public Offering of a mobile telecommunications systems company on the Mothers Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2001. In November 2004, she founded the IR consulting firm, Theoria Research Institute Inc., and became a founding director of Investor Impact, Inc. in December 2012.

Undergraduate degree from the Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law at Japan’s Aoyama Gakuin University. Master of Business Administration from the Graduate School of International Management at Aoyama Gakuin University. After joining a life insurance company, Noriko Yasuda was assigned to a life insurance investment advisory firm engaging in fund management and accounting activities and serving as secretary to the president. Thereafter, she joined IBI, Inc., the predecessor of Investor Impact, Inc., and after serving as an editor, she took up the position of account executive supporting the annual report planning and production needs of publicly listed companies. Following the sale of IBI to the U.K.-based WPP plc. Group, she then transferred to Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Japan), Inc., a WPP Group company. Ms. Yasuda entered Investor Impact in conjunction with the company’s establishment in 2012. As Executive Officer and General Manager of the IR Consulting Division, she is engaged in account executive and management duties and is responsible for a wide range of integrated report consulting, planning, production, and related activities.

Undergraduate degree from the Department of Painting at Japan’s Tama Art University (Oil Painting Course). She joined an advertisement production company where she engaged in design work for PR magazines and promotional tools. She then spent more than 20 years consistently assisting listed corporations in their IR planning and production needs in a company supporting the creation of IR tools. She joined Investor Impact as an Art Director in 2019. Ms. Makino now engages in the artistic direction of integrated report production and the management of designers and operators as an Executive Officer and General Manager of the Creative Division. She has produced a great number of award-winning works and is highly esteemed.