DAN SLOAN was re-elected president, and now is beginning his third consecutive term in the role. His previous Board offices including FCCJ Secretary, First Vice President, and President. He joined the Club in 1994 and is currently a Life Member. He works as an Adjunct Professor of Journalism & Media Studies at Temple University Japan and Lakeland University Japan, as well as a Freelance Writer. He previously worked for Nissan Motor in its Communications Department, and for nearly two decades at Reuters and Knight-Ridder on their financial news and broadcast teams. He is a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Virginia, and author of "Playing to Wiin: Nintendo and the Video Game Industry's Greatest Comeback." He played for over 15 years for the FCCJ Alleycats softball team, loves sports, music and film, and is the proud father of Theo and Sera.
Martin Fackler
A member of the Club since 1997, Martin Fackler joined while still a cub reporter in the Tokyo bureau of The Associated Press, pursuing his dream of becoming a foreign correspondent. In his more than two decades as a journalist in daily news, he also wrote for Bloomberg News, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He worked the longest at the Times, where he covered both Japan and the Korean peninsula as Tokyo business correspondent and then bureau chief. He was also Assistant Asia Editor, in charge of the paper's coverage of China.
A native of Georgia, Martin spent his undergraduate years at Dartmouth College learning Mandarin Chinese and then Japanese, coming to Japan for the first time as an exchange student at Keio University. He returned as a graduate student on a Monbusho scholarship at the University of Tokyo, where he studied economic history, before earning Masters degrees in journalism at the University of Illinois and in history at UC Berkeley.
Martin is currently writing a book about the Fukushima nuclear disaster that will be published hopefully in late 2027. The book builds on his coverage of the disaster on the ground when it happened, which earned him recognition as runner-up for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting.
Martin would like to give back to the Club and work with the Board and other members to figure out how to make the FCCJ more welcoming, relevant and useful for younger journalists in an era when legacy media and big newsrooms are a diminished presence.
Chris Gilbert
Chris is an experienced broadcast journalist who reports from Tokyo for a number of international broadcasters, including CBC, Radio New Zealand, ITV, Al Jazeera, and TRT World. He pursues empathetic storytelling that amplifies minority voices and challenges assumed narratives and power structures. Having witnessed the contraction of the 24-hour news industry from the inside, Chris is currently completing an MBA at Tokyo's Hosei University to explore new business models and opportunities for non-fiction storytelling. Outside of reporting, he is creating a documentary film exploring the lived experiences of pan-Asian New Zealanders, producing a video course on the history of Japanese graphic design, and can generally be found running around Tokyo with a camera in his hands.
His goal as a Director is to represent the needs of journalists working amid growing industry instability and uncertainty. A key objective is for the board to develop a clear value proposition to young storytellers to focus the Club's mission and grow its core membership.
Masayuki Watanabe
Professional Experience / Appointments
Legal Career
- Miyake Law (Aug. 2009 – Present)
Attorney at Law / Partner / Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) / Labor and Social Security Attorney
Outside Directorships / Audit Roles
- Outside Director, Ohsho Food Service Corp. (Jun. 2014 – Jun 2021)
- Outside Director, Nittoku Construction Co., Ltd. (Jun. 2016 – Present)
- Outside Director, Kosaido Holdings Co., Ltd. (Jun. 2020 – Present)
- Outside Director, Yoyogi Animation Academy (Jun. 2021 – Present)
- Outside Director (Audit and Supervisory Committee Member), Mitsuboshi Co., Ltd. (Oct. 2022 – Present)
- Director, Mitsubishi Philippines Corporation (Apr. 2023 – Present)
- Outside Director (Audit and Supervisory Committee Member), Nihon Seima Co., Ltd. (May. 2023 – Jun. 2025)
- Outside Director (Audit and Supervisory Committee Member), nms Holdings Corporation (Jun. 2025 – Present)
- Statutory Auditor, OSL Japan Co., Ltd. (Oct. 2025 – Present)
Education / Admission
- 2007: Columbia Law School (LL.M.)
- 2001: Admitted in Japan (Attorney at Law)
- 1995: The University of Tokyo (LL.B.)
Areas of Practice
- Compliance
- Financial Regulatory
- Privacy Law
- M&A
Kai Hielscher
Harry Dempsey
"Harry is Tokyo correspondent for the Financial Times, covering corporate Japan. He was previously the FT's commodities correspondent. Before that, he worked as an industry reporter and breaking news reporter. He worked in Japan for nearly five years before joining the FT."
John Flanagan
Reporter, media executive, educator, and long-time Japan resident, John Flanagan is President and Managing Director of A+E Global Media Japan & Southeast Asia, where he oversees the company's media businesses across the region, including HISTORY, Lifetime, and Crime+Investigation. He has spent more than 35 years in Japan, with experience spanning journalism, entertainment, marketing, and media leadership.
Born in Tokyo, John returned to Japan as an exchange student at Waseda University before graduating from Colorado College with a degree in Political Economy. He then began his professional career as a reporter for The Japan Times in Osaka, where he covered business and current affairs.
John later helped launch J:COM, which grew to become Japan's largest cable television operator, before moving into senior leadership positions with 20th Century Fox, Apple, and Dyson. At 20th Century Fox Asia and Japan, he managed relationships with Hollywood talent and studios while overseeing marketing for leading entertainment brands. Today, he leads A+E Global Media's business across Japan and Southeast Asia and founded A+E Creative Partners, a video production and marketing agency serving corporate clients throughout the region.
In addition to his corporate responsibilities, John teaches Marketing and Branding at GLOBIS University. He has also worked closely with the FCCJ to preserve and share the Club's rich history through a documentary and digital archive partnership under A+E Global Media's HISTORY Channel brand.
Having built his career at the intersection of journalism, media, and international business, John is committed to helping the FCCJ preserve its remarkable legacy while ensuring it remains a vibrant forum for journalists, members, and the international community for generations to come.
Peter Lyon
Based in Tokyo since 1988, Australian writer Peter Lyon has contributed to many of the world's leading automotive publications, hosted a car show on NHK and authored three books. In addition to Forbes, his byline has appeared in Car and Driver, Motor Trend, Top Gear, The Sydney Morning Herald, Autocar, Herald Sun, GQ Japan, Auto Express, Auto Bild, Evo, Edmunds, Quattroruote, Autoweek, Newsweek Japan, Car (South Africa), Bil Magasinet, The Japan Times, and Forbes Japan.
Lyon studied Politics and Japanese Studies at the University of Western Australia and then completed an advanced Japanese language degree at Keio University as a scholarship student after winning a Japanese language speech contest in Perth in the early 80s.
Since 2015, he has hosted a bi-weekly TV show on car culture called 'Samurai Wheels' with ex-F1 racing driver Ukyo Katayama broadcast on Japan's national NHK World network. In 2010, he created the World Car Awards Racing Team and co-drove a V8 Lexus IS-F race car with Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi and ex-Indy 500 racer Hideshi Matsuda to place 4th-in-class in Germany's grueling 'Nurburgring 24-hour race.'
The fluent Japanese speaker also introduced "Drifting" to the BBC Top Gear's former host Jeremy Clarkson in 1994, and co-ordinated a second shoot in which he piloted the lead car in 2008 for Clarkson in Top Gear's 'GT-R vs Bullet Train' race across Japan. Lyon was commissioned by JAF to author a book in 2014 in Japanese about car culture, and published the English language book 'Toyota Yaris WRC,' which he co-authored with auto historian Brian Long in February 2025 featuring a foreword by Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda.
He is the only columnist to write in English for Forbes and in Japanese for Forbes Japan and is the only non-Japanese juror in Japan's Car of the Year 60-member judging panel. Lyon is a former chairman of the World Car Awards organisation that chose the world's best cars each year, and is currently a judge for the Japan Car of the Year, the Best Cars of the Year, the International Auto Film Festa and the global Toyota Dream Car Art Contest for school children.
Although Peter joined the FCCJ as a regular club member in 2000, he was actually attending club functions and collaborating with other members from 1995 to cover stories starting with the Aum Shinrikyo cult's sarin gas attack.
Since 2024, he has been planning and producing the FCCJ's photo and art shows and receptions as chairman of the Exhibition Committee, and is looking forward to serving for the first on the Board as the club welcomes its new caterers Tokyu Resort Corporation.
Michiyo Nakamoto
Michiyo Nakamoto is a freelance journalist based in Tokyo. She was a journalist for the Financial Times for nearly 25 years, based both in Tokyo and London. As a Tokyo correspondent in the late 1990s she covered the Tokyo financial markets and also wrote about Japanese business and social trends. In her two years in London she first covered UK businesses and then became electronics correspondent for the FT. She was the FT's deputy Tokyo bureau chief from 2006 until 2013.
After leaving the FT she wrote a book in Japanese about the communication pitfalls facing Japanese workers trying to compete in the global business community.
As a freelance journalist she has written for the FT, Nikkei Asia, BBC Online and the New York Times' T Magazine. Her writing these days is mostly focused on Japanese culture.
Michiyo's current interests include architecture, art, design, film and literature. She is married and has two grown children and a grandson.
Anthony Rowley
Anthony Rowley has been a journalist for some sixty years for The Times of London, the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong, the Singapore Business Times and now the South China Morning Post. He has been a member of the FCCJ since 199O and has served as President as well as in other Board positions.
Kanji (Professional Associate)
Simon Farrell
Simon Farrell first joined the FCCJ in 2006, serving as a board director or statutory auditor since 2020 and currently as chair of both the Entertainment and Associate Members Liaison committees.
He is also co-founding publisher of Custom Media, chair of the South African Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and Executive Committee member of The William Adams Club, Tokyo American Club Nihonbashi, Animal Refuge Kansai, and Japan Market Expansion Competition.
He has spent more than 30 years in Japan since 1987, including at the Daily Yomiuri as a page editor and designer of news, opinion and front pages (2001-2004). Simon was based in South Africa, Cuba and Dubai for the UK, US and local press (1993-2001) and also authored two travel books: South Africa Chic (Didier Millet, 2nd edition, 2008) and Getaway's Top 10: 1,500 Southern Africa destinations (Reader's Digest, 2001).
He graduated with honours from the London School of Journalism in 1993 and gained certificates from the Board Director Training Institute of Japan (2020); the Financial Times Non-Executive Director Programme (2019); the Oxford Executive Leadership Programme at Saïd Business School (2020), and the London School of Economics and Political Science (MBA Essentials, 2021).