BDTI Progress Update, and 2014 Fund-Raising Drive – Your Chance to Show You Care About Corporate Governance in Japan!

The Board Director Training Instituteof Japan (BDTI) is the only organization in Japan focusing on the vital area of governance and directorship training for all board members. We are a rare “public-interest” organization, which means that BDTI is certified as such by the Japanese government and generally has tax-free status as a result.

Nicholas Benes Speaks at the DJW Working Group “Finance” Meeting on Wednesday, March 12 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange

Working Group Finance“ within the DJW (Japanese-German Business Association)

It is my pleasure to invite you and your acquaintances to the next meeting of the Working Group “Finance” within the DJW (Japanese-German Business Association).

The meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 12th 2014, 5:30pm-7pm (JPT) at the Tokyo Stock Exchange building, 2-1 Nihonbashi Kabutocho, 103-8220 Tokyo.

April 4th English “Director Boot Camp” – Now Taking Applications!

This one-dayintensive program teaches participants the key legal and corporate governance knowledge they need to responsibly serve on, report to, or analyze boards of Japanese companies, both public and private. The course consists of short lectures interspersed with ample time for interactive discussion and questions-and-answers about real-life situations that occur on boards, and how to handle them. The course is usually good fun for everybody, since we all learn from each others' experiences, as well as from BDTI. The program will cover topics such as:

April 17th, “Reading Japanese Financial Statements as a Board Member” (Course)

This course is now fully booked.

Course Description: This is an intensive full-afternoon session intended tobrush-up (or as they say in Japanese, level-up) participants' familiarity with: a) someof the more complex but important topics that arisein interpreting financial statementsin Japan;b) key emerging issues such as IFRS; and c) how strategy and cash flows are reflected in financial statements.

Freakonomics Podcast on the Pope’s Critique of the Free-market system in “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel)

Jeffrey Sachs and Joseph Kaboski resonating with the Pope in this excellent Podcast by Freakonomics Radio…about the globalization of indifference….but also about the importance of the market:But on the other hand, we’ve never seen an example of any country that has escaped extreme poverty because of foreign aid or NGOs.…

Jeffrey Sachs: