Alumni

Shinichi Ikeo
Professional Fellow '00

Shinichi Ikeo is now a New York bureau correspondent for The Tokyo/Shinichi Shimbun, one of Japan's major daily newspapers. He covers business politics, crimes, and the United Nations, and is particularly interested in how terrorism and war affect the American society. Until he came to New York on May 2005, he had been a Tokyo based business reporter and an editor for the newspaper. In Japan he covered the Bank of Japan, the Ministry of Finance, the Financial Services Agency, the auto industry in addition to other areas.

Over the past five years, he intensively covered the financial sector, doing significant reporting on the nonperforming loans problem. He wrote about the battles between banks and government over how to face the problem, which has plagued the Japanese economy for years. He also covered the privatization of Japan's Postal Service, which recently triggered a significant political and economic battle. Additionally, he led the reporting team that covered the shrinking and aging of Japan's population and how it would effect the economy and society.

He says he learned a great deal during his tenure as a professional fellow. Through his studies about the social welfare system and non-profit-organizations in the United States, he learned about American values, and says he also was intellectually inspired by the Institute's brown-bag lunch lectures.

Shinichi says he enjoyed his interactions with students and faculty at the Institute, some of whom are still his good friends. He lives with his wife of twelve years in Manhattan.