Takafumi Horii

Takafumi Horii is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2026-27. Horii has more than two decades of international leadership experience across the technology, manufacturing, and healthcare industries, most recently serving as President and Representative Director of AstraZeneca K.K. in Japan and Senior Vice President of the AstraZeneca Group since 2022. His expertise includes executive coaching, board governance, CEO and executive advisory, and cross-cultural leadership across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and he has served as a trusted advisor to corporate executives, board members, and founders. Earlier in his career, he began at Canon before leading the Japan launch of a Silicon Valley IT startup for four years. He then spent approximately 14 years at Takeda Pharmaceutical in senior executive roles across China, Switzerland, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates – including President of Takeda Taiwan, Area Head of the Middle East and Africa, and global oncology leadership positions. Following his departure from AstraZeneca, Horii now works as an executive coach, board governance advisor, and investor supporting leaders across Japan and Asia. He holds an MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and a Certificate in Global Management from INSEAD's Executive MBA program, and is fluent in Japanese, English, and Mandarin. While at APARC, he will research which human leadership capability become more, not less, valuable as AI increasingly augments cognitive work in organizations, and how these capabilities can be developed, using healthcare in Japan, and eventually across Asia and the U.S, as the empirical context.