Aberdeen Japan Investment Trust PLC

Karen Brade was appointed a director on 1 May 2013 and assumed the Chair in July 2018. She has over 25 years of investment experience in a range of sectors and markets. She began her career at Citibank, working on various multi-national project finance transactions. Between 1994 and 2004 she was an investment principal at CDC Group plc (the UK Government’s Development Finance Institution) where she directed equity and debt investing, portfolio management, fund raising and investor development including India, South Asia, Africa and China. Since 2005 she has been an adviser to hedge funds, family offices and private equity houses and is currently the Audit Committee Chairman of Augmentum Fintech and Chairman of Keystone Investment Trust.

Claire Boyle was appointed as an independent non-executive director of the Company with effect from 1 February 2019. She has over 17 years' experience working in finance and equity investment management, working on funds over a wide range of sectors for international corporate, Government, State and retail clients, including unit and investment trusts. She was a partner at Oxburgh Partners LLP with responsibility for their European Equity Hedge Fund, and prior to that a European Equity Fund Manager at American Express Asset Management, where her role included both equity investment and business development. She is a chartered accountant, qualifying in 1993 whilst working in litigation support at Coopers & Lybrand, before starting her investment career on the UK research desk at Robert Fleming. She is currently the Audit Committee Chairman of Fidelity Special Values and a director of The Monks Investment Trust.

Sir David Warren was appointed on 1 December 2015. He had a career in the British Diplomatic Service of over 35 years concentrating on East Asia following his initial Japanese language training, including three postings to Tokyo, and culminating in four and a half years as British Ambassador to Japan from 2008 to 2012. He is an Associate Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Programme of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Sam Dean was appointed a director on 1 December 2020. He has a long career in investment banking, working in Equity Capital Markets and corporate finance on behalf of corporate and government clients globally. After starting his career in 1993 at Kleinwort Benson, he subsequently worked as a Managing Director at Citibank (1998-2001), Deutsche Bank (2001-2009), and Barclays (2009-2017). At Deutsche and Barclays, he held senior management positions as Global Head of Equity Capital Markets and Head of Corporate Finance, whilst continuing to work on client transactions.