Ken Kitatani currently serves as the Chief of Executive Board and Committee of ICEED. For the past few decades he has held key positions as an expert in ethics and values with regard to Indigenous Peoples, biodiversity, and education within the United Nations, international organizations, and various government agencies. Ken joined ICEED in 2012, was appointed as Director General in 2018, and has served as Chair of the ICEED United Nations Council since 2022. Simultaneously, he is a Council Member at the European Council (AI Committee and AI Human Rights Committee), a member of the OECD AI Expert Committee and a representative on the UNECE WP29 committee. Ken is former co-chair and current member of the advisory board of the Center for Earth Ethics and serves on the boards of the UN Committee of NGOs, Society for Conservation Biology, and is a Permanent Observer to the UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance, and the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform of the UNFCCC. Ken is an advisor to the Vatican Scholas Occurrentes Foundation, the Loka Initiative of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Wisconsin, and is a senior advisor to General Russel Honore for Indigenous Affairs.
Ken Kitatani comes from a family heritage in diplomatic service. The late Mr. Katsuhide Kitatani, father of Ken was instrumental in opening up the United Nations office in Japan in 1962 and was the second Japanese national to work as a UN staff member since the founding of the United Nations. He held various prominent positions, including UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) and Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The Kitatani family has familial ties to the Mikasa Imperial family of Japan and has supported its activities throughout the years.