This event now concluded.
- Speaker : Yuhiko YASUNAGA（Head Regent, Hongwanji）
- Date: Friday, December 8, 2023, 6:30-8:30 pm ※Reception included
- Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
- Language: Japanese (without interpretation)
- Admission: 5,000 yen/person (Registration required)
*This event is exclusively for I-House members.
*Members may be accompanied by a spouse or partner.
※On the day of the event, please present your membership card at the reception desk in front of the venue.
I-House regularly holds members-only events to which distinguished member is invited as a guest. The featured speaker in December will be Reverand Yuhiko Yasunaga, the head regent of Hongwanji.
Yuhiko Yasunaga has a unique background, becoming a Buddhist monk after working as a banker and management consultant. He has introduced various innovations aimed at stemming the decline in the number of people visiting temples due to Japan’s declining birthrate, aging population, and changing values. He spearheaded reforms at Tsukiji Hongwanji, a temple in Tokyo belonging to the Hongwanji sect of Jodo Shinshu, with the aim of creating a temple that was more open to society.
Since last year, he has been advancing reforms in Kyoto, which is both a religious and secular city and also where the head temple of Nishi Hongwanji is located. He will talk about the challenges he faced in innovating traditional, conservative organizations, the mindset that is important when seeking to change traditional ways of thinking and values, and the role temples should play in contemporary society.
(Ordained as Yugen YASUNAGA on March 15, 2005)
Reverand Yasunaga was born in Tokyo in 1954 and received his BA in economics from Keio University and PhD in management from the University of Cambridge. After working at Sanwa Bank, Ltd. (now MUFG Bank) for over 21 years and then Russel Reynolds Associates, he joined Shimamoto Partners, becoming president in 2006 and now serving as chairman. In 2015, he was appointed head of religious affairs and director general at Tsukiji Hongwanji temple in Tokyo, leading Buddhist services and overseeing the temple’s business management, as well as engaging in novel missionary projects in the Tokyo metropolitan area. He has been Hongwanji head regent since August 2022.