Dr. Thomas Cynkin, an acknowledged authority on Japan and broader Asian affairs, is a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council. He previously headed the Washington Office of Fujitsu Ltd., a $46B/year global information technology corporation, as Chief Corporate Representative, Vice President and General Manager.

Prior to that position, Dr. Cynkin served as a State Department Foreign Service Officer for over 20 years, during which he was assigned as a Japanese-speaking diplomat in Japan for seven years and was the Asian affairs advisor to two Deputy Secretaries of State and two U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations.

He has also served as a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade association for Fortune 50 tech corporations. He is a member of the Japan Commerce Association of Washington, D.C.

Dr. Cynkin also taught graduate seminars on the Japanese and Chinese economies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, and served as a member of the senior staff of the Bush School of Government and Public Service in Washington DC. He is a commentator for the Tokyo-based daily newspaper, The Japan Times, and has been interviewed in other Japanese periodicals including the Yomiuri Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun.

He received his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He was a Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and worked at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis before entering government service.