Masami Yamamoto is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2021-22.  Yamamoto has held various positions related to fiscal and monetary policy at Japan's Ministry of Finance (MOF).  Before joining Shorenstein APARC, he served as the Director of the Office for countering illicit financial flows at the MOF since 2020 and was involved in the FATF mutual evaluation of Japan and the policy coordination of anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, and combatting-proliferation finance with relevant ministries.  Prior to that, Yamamoto conducted financial inspections of major banks, supervised regional banks, and worked on regional economic revitalization in some areas.  In addition, he worked overseas in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Singapore, and made study reports on political and economic situations in the Asia-Pacific, Europe and Africa.