Kotaro INOUE

Kotaro Inoue has been executive vice president for the Universities for International Research Excellence program and chief financial officer at Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo) since April 2026. He also serves concurrently as a professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Economics in the School of Engineering.

Inoue was executive vice president for finance and chief financial officer from 2024 to 2026. Before the birth of Science Tokyo, he was dean of the School of Engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) from 2022 to 2024, and vice dean from 2018 to 2022.

Inoue’s research interests include corporate finance, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, and innovation. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Tokyo in 1989, an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management in 1997, and a PhD from Tsukuba University in 2003.

After spending fifteen years as a practitioner in investment banks, Inoue joined Nagoya City University as an associate professor of finance in 2003. He was an associate professor of finance at Keio University from 2007 to 2012, and then joined Tokyo Tech as a professor of finance in 2012.

Inoue was president of the Nippon Finance Association from 2020 to 2022, a board member of the Asian Finance Association from 2012 to 2021, and president of the Eight-University Engineering Association in Japan from 2022 to 2023. He has also served Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare as a policy-making committee member.