Industry and regulatory experts will talk about how the digital economy is transforming their business practices. Be inspired to adapt to changes within your own business environments!
Are you ready for the Digital Economy?
Join us to hear from industry and regulatory experts on how the digital economy is transforming their business practices and be inspired to adapt to changes within your own business environments!
The European Business Council in Japan through its Business Fundamentals Group (Financial Reporting, Intellectual Property Rights, Legal Services, Retail & Wholesale and Tax committees) invite you to a seminar on the digital economy and its impact on business.
The event will be held on 26 February from 17:00 at the EU Delegation in Hiroo.
Two panels with representatives from different industry segments will discuss and present how they have changed or are changing to meet and prosper from the new challenges and possibilities that digitalization and the digital economy offer. The focus will be not only on changes to business models, work styles, but also cultural and technical adjustments as well as to the regulatory environment.
This “EBC Briefing” seminar is the first of its kind, and was organized in pursuit of one of the main objectives of the New EBC, which is to reinforce and broadly showcase the work of the EBC Committees. For more information and a detailed agenda, as well as a presentation of the speakers and moderators, please see the attached documents.
To register to this event, send an email to ebc@ebc-jp.com with your name and affiliation by 23 February.
Looking forward to seeing you at the seminar.
EBC – The European Business Council in Japan
EVENT DETAILS
| Date: | 26th FEBRUARY 2020 |
| Time: | 17;00 – 19:00 (doors open at 16.30) (followed by a light reception from 19:00 to 20:00) |
| Venue: | Auditorium and Foyer of the EU DelegationEuropa House, 4-6-28 Minamiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo |
| Organizer: | EBC Japan (through the following committees: Financial Reporting, Human Resources, Intellectual Property Rights, Legal Services, Retail & Wholesale, Tax) |
| Language: | English (no simultaneous translation) |
| Registration: | Email your name and affiliation by 23 February to:ebc@ebc-jp.com |
AGENDA
| Time | Topic | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 16:30 – 17:00 | REGISTRATION | |
| 17:00– 17:10 | EU Delegation Welcome Remarks | H.E Ambassador Patricia Flor (TBC) |
| 17:10– 18:00 | Opening remarks by EBC President – Industry panel discussion Moderator (Michael Mroczek) Panelists: | Michael Mroczek Debraj Dasgupta, Operating Officer, Head of Strategy and GTM Planning Division, Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim Co., Ltd. Wolfgang Bierer, CEO and Founder of Endeavor SBC, President/CEO of BREE Japan KK, Mephisto Japan KK, V. Fraas Japan KK Christian Wiedmann, CEO, BMW Japan Soichiro Murata Director, IoT/Industrie 4.0 , SAP Japan |
| 18:00 – 18:10 | BREAK | |
| 18:10 – 19:00 | Regulatory panel discussion – Moderator (Rika Beppu) Panelists: 1. Tax – Robotics in tax accounting and compliance. 2. Financial Reporting – Analytics and automation in financial reporting. 3. Legal Services -Data protection at the crossroads between European and Japanese regulations after the adequacy decision and e-commerce. 4. Intellectual Property Rights – E-commerce and intellectual property. 5. Future EU regulation of AI, platforms, and data. | 1. Ryann Thomas, PwC 2. Dirk Hermans, Partner, EY 3. Ulrich Kirchhoff, Partner, Arqis 4 Laurent Dubois, Partner, TMI Associates 5. Stefan Kramer, EU Delegation to Japan |
| 19:00– 20:00 | Light Reception |
The event is made possible with the help of the following sponsors:
The following organizations are the EBC members:
EBC Seminar
Are you ready for the Digital Economy?
Speakers and moderators
Michael Mroczek
Michael Mroczek is currently the President of the EBC, a position he has held since the beginning of 2019. In parallel he is a lawyer and a foreign partner at Okuno & Partners, where he specialises in commercial arbitration. Michael also lectures at the University of Tokyo. Before coming to Japan Michael worked for a Swiss boutique law firm in St Gallen, Switzerland.
Debraj Dasgupta
Debraj Dasgupta is currently working with Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim in Japan as Operating Officer, Head of Strategy and Go To Market Planning Division and has more than 20 years of experience working within the pharmaceutical industry. Within Boehringer Ingelheim, he has been instrumental in building high performing teams and driving go to market transformation through new digital platforms, processes and capabilities. Prior to joining Boehringer Ingelheim, he has worked extensively within commercial roles with Novartis and Sanofi across multiple geographies namely- India, Switzerland and Germany. In his spare time he likes being involved in healthcare angel investing in Asia, travelling and networking on Linkedin.
Wolfgang Bierer
Wolfgang is the CEO and founder of Endeavor SBC, and has long experience from both running and supporting retail operations. Currently running multiple brands with 25 retail outlets in Japan while providing manangement consulting services for large global retailers, he is in the unique position of being a consultant as well as a practitioner in the retail space.
Christian Wiedmann
An 18-year-veteran of the BMW Group, Christian’s career has taking him all over the global, where before coming to Japan as the President and CEO of BMW Group Japan he was the President of BMW Group Thailand. Previouly he had served as Managing Director and CEO of BMW Group Finance Services Australia. Christian joined the BMW Group in 2001 and has since served various functions in BMW Group in many regions across the globe – including Germany, Japan, Austria, Greece, South Korea and Australia.
Soichiro Murata
Soichiro is Director, IoT/Industrie 4.0 at SAP Japan. He joined SAP in 2011,has had various roles in business development, and spent the last 5 years to support digital transformation (DX) of Japanese companies. He is the author of the book “Why Digital Matters?” (2018, President Inc.) Soichiro has more than 25 years of experience in IT industry, including a 8-year endeavour at an IT startup and nine years with Tandem/Compaq/HP. He has an MBA from Rice University in Houston, Texas, USA.
Rika Beppu
Rika is an English law solicitor and partner at Squire Patton Boggs where she focuses on advising Japanese multinational companies on corporate and M&A transactions. Rika has extensive knowledge of multi-jurisdictional corporate transactions, and is adept at leading a team of expert lawyers across the firm’s network and is ranked as a leading practitioner in the leading legal directories. She currently chairs the EBC Legal Services Committee, is a founding member and President of Women in Law Japan, and a founding member and auditor of Asia Society Japan Center.
Ryann Thomas
Qualified as a barrister and solicitor in New Zealand, Ryann joined PwC Tax Japan in mid 2001. She is currently a partner with the firm’s International Tax Services group, and a member of the EBC’s Tax Committee. Along with traditional tax compliance and consulting work, Ryann is also working with PwC’s Tax Reporting and Research solution to enhance the inhouse tax function for Japanese and foreign companies, an important component of which involves the (potential) use of digital technologies in various tax processes.
Dirk Hermans
Dirk is the Systems, Processes, and Analytics Leader for EY Japan’s Financial Accounting Advisory Services Group. He is a Chartered Accountant in the UK and a US CPA registered in New York. At the EBC he founded and led the Financial Reporting Committee for a number of years. Dirk has been in Japan for 10 years and has advised Japanese and foreign companies on digital transformation, smart close, initial public offerings, post-merger integration, accounting advisory under IFRS & US GAAP, and US SOX compliance. His recent focus has been on building analytics and intelligent automation capabilities across the APAC region.
Ulrich Kirchhoff
Ulrich Kirchhoff is qualified as a German lawyer, as a foreign registered lawyer in Japan and as a lawyer in the State of New York. He is a partner of ARQIS Foreign Law Office with more than 16 years of experience as lawyer, 14 years of which in Japan. Ulrich’s practice focuses on the support of European investors in Japan and of Japanese investors in Europe in the field of corporate law as well as data protection law and cyber security related matters. Having worked on cross-border legal transactions in Germany, the United States of America and in Japan, Ulrich gained a global insight in different legal concepts affecting multinational companies’ business operations.
Laurent Dubois
Laurent is a partner at TMI Associates, and a registered foreign lawyer in Japan, and well known for being a leading expert on IPR issues. He has thoughout his career represented several major brand and trademark owners, and has been the head of Union Des Fabricants in Tokyo. Before joining TMI, Laurent was resident partner with the French law firm Cotty Vivant Marchisio & Lauzeral. He has also been the commercial attach at the French Embassy in Tokyo.
Stefan Kramer
Since November 2018, Stefan Kramer holds the position of First Counsellor at the Delegation of the EU to Japan and is based in Tokyo. At the EU Delegation Stefan is responsible for all files related to the Digital Economy and Society. Before his appointment in Tokyo, her worked at the European Commission in Brussels, in the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect). In DG Connect, Stefan led the Unit responsible for the regulation of electronic communications markets. Prior to his work in DG Connect, Stefan was working for five years in the Directorate General responsible for Competition (DG Competition) in the field of Antitrust in the Telecoms, Postal and Energy sectors.
