Shiro Inoue was a Japanese banker who was active in the 20th century. He served as the second president of the Asian Development Bank, taking over after the first president, Takeshi Watanabe, fell ill.
Inoue was born in February 1915.[1] His father was Junnosuke Inoue, the Minister of Finance who was assassinated in the League of Blood Incident in 1932, and his mother was Chiyoko, the daughter of Baron Jusuke Mōri [<nowiki/>[[:ja:_毛利重輔|ja]]], a railway engineer and the 16th head of the Yoshiki-Mōri family [<nowiki/>[[:ja:吉敷毛利家|ja]]], a cadet branch of the Mōri clan, Lords of Choshu.[2] [3] He was educated at Hibiya High School and went on to study at the University of Tokyo in 1938. Upon graduation, he took up a job as a central banker at the Bank of Japan. He served as a board member responsible for foreign exchange from 1967 to 1972, during which he led the country through the Nixon Shock.[4] He succeeded to Takeshi Watanabe as the president of the Asian Bank of Development on 25 November 1972 and remained in that position until 23 November 1976. Under his leadership, the bank's annual lendings more than doubled, and he oversaw the establishment of the Asian Development Fund.[5] He died at 95 on 11 July 2010.[6]