Takehiko Nakao

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?.

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.