BCI President Anne M. Shibata has an MA in Intercultural Communication, speaks fluent Japanese and lived and worked in Japan from 1982-1998. An experienced businesswoman, trainer, teacher, and international consultant, she has been helping clients to cross cultural, linguistic and psychological borders for 16 years. While in Japan, she appeared on weekly television programs for four years, had a radio program, and lectured extensively in Japanese on cross-cultural issues in schools, universities and at government agencies. Ms. Shibata was President of both New York English School and Intercultural Communication Services, two companies with multi-national staffs which she founded and managed.
Her community work also focuses on creating cross-cultural understanding. She was instrumental in arranging several fundraisers in Fukuoka, Japan that brought together the Japanese and foreign communities. Ms. Shibata also served as national President of AFWJ, a professional organization of expatriate women living and working in Japan.
In addition to her business and community experience, she was Asst. Professor of Communication for Chikushi Jogakuen University. Since returning to the U.S. she has taught "Communication Among Cultures" at State University of New York, College at New Paltz. In her academic career, she has published and presented extensively in the field of cross-cultural understanding. Most recently, she presented research at the NY Conference on Asian Studies, the Japan Association of Language Teachers Conference in Okayama, Japan, and the Hong Kong Baptist University in Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. She was one of only two non-Japanese researchers invited to join the Japan Communication Researchers Meeting (Nihon Komyunikashun Kenkyusha Kaigi). She conducted extensive cross-cultural training workshops at various sites in Japan and the US. Ms. Shibata finds a great deal of satisfaction in helping clients build successful business relationships based on cultural understanding, and firmly believes that in the Global Village, "The only borders remaining are the ones in our minds."
