Katsumi Sawada, the Seoul bureau chief of the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, was elected president of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club Thursday, the club said.

Sawada, 45, has been working as the newspaper’s Seoul bureau chief since 2012. He had previously served as a correspondent for the newspaper in Geneva, Switzerland, from 2005-2009.

Other board members elected include First Vice President Lee Chang-ho from Thomson Reuters, Second Vice President Yan Xue of Science & Technology Daily, and Secretary General Faletti Sebastien of Le Figaro, it said in a news release.

The SFCC, founded in 1956, has about 500 members from more than 100 media organizations around the world. (Yonhap News)