Masafumi Kodama is a partner at Kitahama Partners in Osaka, Japan. He received his LL.B from the University of Tokyo, started his practice in 1993, and received LL.M degree from Cornell Law School. After graduation from Cornell, he worked in New York and Singapore for a little more than a year. He has worked as counsel and arbitrator in a number of international commercial arbitration cases, as well as counsel for execution / setting aside cases before Japanese courts. With such experience, he regularly advises numerous multi-national companies on arbitration, has written and lectured for a variety of arbitration and dispute resolution issues, including the Japan Chapter of “World Arbitration Reporter” issued by Juris Publishing. He was the IPBA Committee Coordinator between 2016 and 2018, has been a Council member of Japan Association of Arbitrators since 2011, and an ICC Court member since 2024.