PROFILE

Mr. Benes leads a non-profit organization, The Board Director Training Institute of Japan (BDTI), which has provided training for board members and executives on corporate governance and related management topics for over 10 years, and is supported by many institutional investor donors. BDTI is the only "public interest organization" created by the private sector but approved by the Japanese government to act in this area. In addition to training activities, BDTI promotes efficient analysis of corporate governance at all listed Japanese companies, by normalizing time-series data (including text) from all key disclosure documents in Japan, and providing this data through its proprietary “GoToData” platform, direct access to its database, and consulting projects.

He is trained in both law and business (JD-MBA), is bilingual in Japanese and English, and has served on a number of boards in Japan (thirteen years in total). He gained broad experience in investment banking during 11 years at JP Morgan, in New York, London and Tokyo, after which he founded a ground-breaking boutique M&A advisory firm in Japan, JTP Corporation.
A corporate governance advocate for many years, in 2013 and 2014 he had success when he was able to convince the Japanese government to promulgate a corporate governance code (CGC), and advised the FSA on its contents – including a principle requiring “diversity, including gender diversity.” He has seeded a number of other governance reforms. Momentum for the CGC was made possible because in 2010, he had founded and led a “Growth Strategy Task Force” at the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ), which proposed a productivity-based growth strategy for Japan and supported its 100-page White Paper with extensive economic analysis documenting the reasons for Japan’s “lost two decades.” This report was widely read by key policymakers in Japan.