After passing the Japanese Bar Examination and graduating from the University of Tokyo (Faculty of Law), Mr. Katayama joined the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in 1983 and completed his career as a government official in 2019. As a government official, he dealt with the supervision of financial institutions for a total of seven years including at the time of Japan’s financial crisis and handled various insolvency cases of financial institutions such as the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan as Director of the Financial Supervisory Agency in 1998. He also dealt with the debt management policy of JGBs as Director of the Financial Bureau of MOF (2006-2008) and designed the emergency lending scheme of government financial institutions at the time of the Global Financial Crisis as Director of the Minister’s Secretariat of MOF.

In addition to these financial matters, he worked for six years (1988-1990 and 2015-2019) in tax and customs matters, including as Deputy General Manager of the National Tax Tribunal (2018-2019). He was also seconded as General Manager of JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization) Copenhagen Office (2000-2003) and as Legal & Crisis Management Manager of NIDEC Corporation (2010-2012) under the personnel exchange program between the public and private sectors.

In 2020, he was registered as an attorney with the Dai-ichi Tokyo Bar Association and became Special Counsel of Atsumi & Sakai Law Firm. After working as Advisor for Nippon Life Insurance Company for three years, he joined SAAJ as Executive Vice President in 2022 and became Managing Director in 2023.

In addition to a BA in Law from the University of Tokyo, he received a Diploma in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1986.