OANDA's Japanese brokerage has replaced Yoshiharu Yanagisawa at the top of the company with two joint representative directors, according to a notice posted today (Tuesday). Akira Miyamura and Philip Waters now share the post, OANDA Securities said.
Under Japan's Companies Act, the representative director is the board member who can act and sign on a company's behalf, and the post usually goes with the chief executive's job. The change took effect on September 30, and the English version of the notice lists both appointees as president.
London's trading industry is coming home!
They take charge about eight weeks before OANDA Securities switches off MetaTrader 4 on November 27, the last stage of a move to MT5 that started when it raised MT4 margin requirements to 10% in June.
Changes at the Top Since the FTMO Deal
The Tokyo reshuffle follows other leadership changes since Czech prop trading firm FTMO agreed to buy OANDA from CVC Asia Fund IV in February 2025.
- OANDA Japan Targets Phishing With Passkeys Following Planned Web-Based MetaTrader Exit
- OANDA Japan Confirms End of Web-Based MetaTrader Services
- OANDA Japan Cuts MT4 Leverage to 10x, Forces MT5 Transfer for Low-Margin Accounts
FTMO founders Otakar Šuffner and Marek Vašíček became co-CEOs of OANDA in March after Gavin Bambury stepped down.
In June, OANDA promoted Lucian Lauerman to chief executive of OANDA Europe. He had been deputy chief operating officer.
A Marketing Chief and a Regional CEO Take Over
OANDA describes Yanagisawa as managing director and representative director for Japan. Its Japanese unit's annual disclosures through the year to March 2026 name him as its representative.
Before OANDA, he worked in foreign exchange at banks including Bankers Trust, HSBC and State Street, where he ran the Tokyo office for seven years, according to his company biography. The biography also credits him with building relationships with Japanese retail FX aggregators.
Miyamura comes from the marketing side. He has been chief marketing officer for Japan and Greater China since January 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He has also been an executive officer at OANDA Japan since 2016. In Japanese companies, that title covers day-to-day management and does not by itself carry a board seat.
Waters has been OANDA's regional CEO for Asia-Pacific and emerging markets since May 2022, based in Singapore, according to his LinkedIn profile. Japan sat outside that remit until July, when he took on oversight of OANDA Securities, the profile says.
He joined OANDA in 2020 to run its emerging markets business. After the FTMO takeover he folded OANDA Prop Trader into FTMO, his profile states, a process that began when OANDA started moving its prop trading clients to FTMO in March.
