Yoshiyuki Kasai
* Co-Chair 2015
Chairman Emeritus
Central Japan Railway Company, Japan

Yoshiyuki Kasai is the Chairman Emeritus and Representative Director of Central Japan Railway Company (JRC), which operates the Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train system linking Japan’s principal metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. JRC is also the developer of the maximum speed 581 km/h Superconducting Maglev (SCMAGLEV) System.

Mr. Kasai joined Japan National Railway (JNR) in 1963 and played a major role in JNR’s reform. After the break-up and privatization of JNR, he was appointed President of JRC in 1995, Chairman in 2004, and then Chairman Emeritus in 2014. He succeeded in dramatically improving the Tokaido Shinkansen transport service by opening the new Shinagawa Station and achieving the speed-up of all Shinkansen trains to 270 km/h in 2003. JRC is now developing the Chuo Shinkansen as the bypass of Tokaido Shinkansen, by the SCMAGLEV technology.

Among his public services, Mr. Kasai is the Chairman of the “Committee on National Space Policy” and Extraordinary Commissioner of the “Fiscal System Council”.

Mr. Kasai published four books including “Japanese National Railways, its Break-up and Privatization (2003)”. He earned his B.L. from the University of Tokyo in 1962 and his M.S. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1969. Mr. Kasai received the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun in 2014 for his achievements in railway service and several public services.