James Castle

James Castle is the founder of CastleAsia, established in Jakarta in 1980 in association with PT Jasa Cita. In over 30 years of work in Southeast Asia, he has advised in the establishment of numerous foreign direct investment projects. He has acted as a consultant to many of the world's largest corporations, as well as many of Indonesia and Southeast Asia’s largest business groups. In addition to his experience with private-sector clients, he has also been a consultant to numerous projects for governments and international agencies, including the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Asian Development Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Indonesian government. He is an honorary professorial fellow at Monash University and was an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in 2008 and 2011.

Mr. Castle currently serves as a member of the Board of Commissioners of TVS Motor Indonesia. He is on the Advisory Board of Coca-Cola Indonesia. He was appointed by the minister of finance as the only non-Indonesian member of the Indonesian National Team to Review Tax Law Changes in 2005. He was one of two foreigners appointed to Indonesia’s Tripartite Forum on Industrial Relations in 2001. He has convened numerous conferences and seminars on economic reform, sectoral opportunities, and public policy issues, and he appears frequently on CNBC, CNN, and BBC as a commentator on Indonesian business and politics. Mr. Castle earned a master's degree from the University of Hawaii (1972) as an East-West Center student and a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan (1968). As a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, he conducted research as a Fulbright doctoral research scholar at Universitas Pajajaran (1977) and the Koninklijke Instituut in The Netherlands (1976). He was an East-West Center visiting scholar at Mindanao State University, Philippines (1972), and Gajah Mada University, Indonesia (1973). He was a USAID intern in Washington, D.C., in 1974. He served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines (1968–1972).