Takeo Akiba

Senior Advisor to the Cabinet
Former National Security Advisor

AKIBA Takeo was the National Security Advisor (Secretary General of National Security Secretariat) of Japan from July 7th, 2021 to January 20th, 2025 and is now the Senior Advisor to the Cabinet. He has been in positions to brief the Prime Minister almost daily for the last eight and half years, thereby serving 4 Prime Ministers consecutively.

Mr. Akiba, born on December 19th, 1958, joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1982 as a career diplomat. He has extensive experience in international law, Asian affairs, Japan-US relations, and UN affairs. Throughout his diplomatic career, he served at the Embassy of Japan in the United States twice, most recently as Political Minister from January 2009 to January 2012.

Prior to assuming the National Security Advisor position, Mr. Akiba served as Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs from January 2018 until June 2021. He also served as Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs from June 2016 to January 2018, as Deputy Vice-Minister for Foreign Policy/Director-General of the Foreign Policy Bureau from October 2015 to June 2016, and as Director-General for International Legal Affairs Bureau from August 2014 to October 2015. He was Deputy Director-General of the North American Affairs Bureau from January 2012 to July 2014.

His professional experience at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs includes: Director of the China and Mongolia Division; Director of the International Legal Affairs Division; Director of the Treaties Division; Director of the United Nations Policy Division; and Executive Assistant to Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs. He once was seconded to the Banking Bureau of the Ministry of Finance from August 1985 to August 1987, where he was in charge of revising the deposit insurance law and of other legislative matters relating to finance and banking.

Mr. Akiba earned a bachelor’s degree of law from University of Tokyo. He also studied at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he received a master’s degree. In 2008, he was a fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, where he focused on examining the impact of WMD proliferation on East Asian security.