Dr Saori Sugeno

Saori is Associate Dean International (Interim) for the Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences and Senior Lecturer in Finance and Corporate Governance at the University of Surrey. She also serves as Executive Director of the Corporate Patrons Council for the University of Surrey GIFT City International Branch Campus. Her work brings together universities, academic communities and industry to build international partnerships that create opportunities for students and contribute to the communities they serve.

A market economist before she moved into academia, Saori spent sixteen years with Daiwa Securities, covering ASEAN with a particular focus on Indonesia in Tokyo, and emerging markets in London, latterly as Senior Economist and Executive Director of Research. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, working on Russian structural reforms, and a consultant to Sumitomo Corporation covering Eastern Europe. She wrote a column on Russia for Nikkei, which led to two books published by Nikkei Publishing.

Saori's research focuses on stakeholder capitalism, comparative corporate governance and shareholder activism. She is the author of Stakeholder Capitalism and Corporate Governance in Japan (De Gruyter, 2025) and delivers sessions on leadership and executive education programmes at the Møller Institute, University of Cambridge. She holds a PhD in Economics from Chuo University, Tokyo, and is a native Russian speaker, fluent in Japanese.