The Board of Councillors has elected Professor Achieng Otieno as its chair, succeeding Hirano Sōichirō, who chaired the board for eight years and remains a councillor.
Professor Otieno is an epidemiologist and directed a national eye health programme in Kenya for nine years. She has been a councillor since 2019 and is the first chair of the Board of Councillors from outside Japan.
Under Japanese law the Board of Councillors elects and can dismiss the Foundation’s directors and auditors and approves its accounts. “Councillors are the people who are supposed to ask the board the questions it would rather not answer,” Professor Otieno said. “I intend to ask them in English and, with practice, in Japanese.”
The board also re-elected Moriyama Fumiko and Dr Rahel Tesfaye as directors for further two-year terms.