Join us in celebrating Keizai Silicon Valley’s 2024 Shinnenkai (New Year’s Reception) on Friday, January 26, at the Palo Alto Hills Golf and Country Club. This year we are honored to award Ms. Yoky Matsuoka, CEO of PanasonicWELL and Yohana, with the Keizai Silicon Valley Distinguished Achievement Award.
Ms. Matsuoka is a highly accomplished executive and technologist with over two decades of leadership experience. She has made significant contributions to many enterprises including Google, Nest, Apple, and Quanttus, where she focused on creating consumer technology designed to create healthier and happier lives. Her diverse background includes academia, where she founded the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and the Neurobotics Laboratory and received the MacArthur Genius Award for her contributions to robotics and neuroscience.
Ms. Matsuoka will give an acceptance speech and participate in a fireside chat. Phil Keys, Director, Comms and Research at Intertrust and a columnist for the Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun will be the moderator.
We will also be performing our traditional Kagamibiraki (sake barrel opening) ceremony. The Deputy Consul General of Japan, Mr. Kishimori is expected to lead this tradition.
Yoky Matsuoka is the Managing Executive Officer of Panasonic Holdings, CEO of PanasonicWELL and CEO of Yohana. PanasonicWELL is focused on building consumer technology products and services to help people live healthier and happier lives. An accomplished executive and technologist, Matsuoka brings more than two decades of leadership experience to her roles. Prior to Panasonic Holdings/Yohana, Matsuoka brought her distinct approach to human centric design to leading tech giants, most recently as a Vice President at Google's Healthcare organization, and before that as Chief Technology Officer at Nest. Prior to Nest, she was Head of Innovation and co-founder of Google X, the company’s research and development lab. She has also served in a senior executive role at Apple and was Chief Executive Officer of Quanttus, a wearable health technology startup. Before her work in Silicon Valley, Matsuoka’s career began in academia as an endowed professor at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington. During her tenure, she founded and directed the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and the Neurobotics Laboratory to create devices to restore the human body's capabilities for sensation and movement. Matsuoka received the MacArthur Genius Award for her work in robotics and neuroscience. With this grant she founded YokyWorks Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children with physical and learning challenges, focused on removing reading barriers to unlock the potential of every child.
Phil works in Marketing Communications at Intertrust Technologies, a Silicon Valley software company specializing in trusted distributed computing. He is also one of the writers of the Shinpu (New Wind) Silicon Valley column in the Nikkei Sangyo Newspaper. Prior to Intertrust, Phil spent over 13 years as a US correspondent for Nikkei Business Publications covering the technology industry in Silicon Valley as well as in consulting and marketing positions in both the U.S. and Japan. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Phil also attended International Christian University in Tokyo.
Friday, January 26, 2024
Dress code: Business casual. A buffet dinner will be served.
