KAWAKUBO Toshihiro was born in Kagawa Prefecture, graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo, and joined the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) in 1989.

During his time at MOHA and its successor agency, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), he was seconded to four local governments, where he resolved regional issues as a senior official. Furthermore, from 1996 to 1998, he worked at the Okinawa Development Agency. He has therefore been deeply involved with regional areas far from Tokyo, including the prefectures of Kagawa, Ishikawa, Fukuoka, Okayama, Iwate and Okinawa.

At the central government (MOHA & MIC), KAWAKUBO Toshihiro served for many years in the Local Tax Bureau and the Local Public Finance Bureau. In particular, at the Local Tax Bureau, he served as section chief in charge of many local tax categories and, in 2022, was appointed Director of the Local Tax Bureau.

Since retiring from MIC in 2024, he has served as a lecturer at Heisei International University (since 2025) and as a specially appointed professor at Rikkyo University Graduate School of Economics (since 2026), teaching and researching public finance with a particular focus on local public finance and local tax systems.