Yoshio Utsumi

was the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) from 1998 to 2006.

Early life and education

Yoshio Utsumi was born in 1942 in Takamatsu, a city in Kagawa Prefecture on the Japanese island of Shikoku. He obtained a Bachelor in Law degree from the University of Tokyo in 1965, and a Master of Arts in Political Science degree from the University of Chicago in 1972.

Career

Utsumi worked for the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in various high level posts, including helping liberalize Japan's telecommunications market, serving as director-general of the ministry, and serving as first secretary of the Japanese mission to the ITU for 3 years, before he moved to the post of ITU secretary-general in 1998.

International Telecommunication Union

Utsumi had already contributed to the ITU before joining the organisation. He spent three years, from 1978 onward, as First Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Japan in charge of ITU affairs in Geneva, elected as its Chairman at the 1994 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference was held in Kyoto where he witnessed the approval of a Japanese proposal for the creation of the ITU's World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF).

Awarded IEEE Honorary Membership, 2015