Deputy Secretary-General SAKATA Natsuko, graduated from the University of Tokyo (Law) and earned an LL.M from the New York University School of Law. Lately, she completed the Weatherhead Centre Program on US-Japan Relations at Harvard University. She entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) of Japan in 1995, and began her diplomatic career in the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau. Since 2011, she served as a Counsellor in the Embassies of Japan in Malaysia, the United States, and the Republic of Korea, as well as the Permanent Delegation of Japan to the OECD and the Cabinet Secretariat. She assumed the position of Deputy Secretary-General of the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat in September 2021.