JANM Welcomes New Board Members

Editors please note: JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation; programs will continue on the JANM campus and at other locations at janm.org/OnTheGo. 

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) welcomes six new members to its boards of trustees and governors. Jane Yada joined the board of trustees and Shinichi Fujinami, Nate Gyotoku, David Inoue, Stan Masamitsu, Rick Noguchi, Lisa Sasaki, George Tanaka, Duncan Ryuken Williams, and Audrey Yamamoto joined the board of governors. 

Jane Fujishige Yada is a businesswoman and philanthropist in Orange County, California. The Fujishiges were one of the prominent farming families who played a significant role in the growth and development of the region since 1952. In the 1980s their family farm became part of the Anaheim Resort area due to the growth of Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center. In 1998 they sold the majority of the original farm ground to the Walt Disney Corporation. In the late 1990s, Yada became comanager of the family farming interests as well as the family real estate portfolio under Harbor Field Holdings, L.L.C. Today, the Fujishige interests include multiple agricultural, residential, industrial office and hospitality properties as well as farms in Orange, Ventura, and Santa Cruz Counties in California. She received her BA in English from UCLA and is a huge fan of her hometown sports teams, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Anaheim Ducks.

Shinichi Fujinami heads the Japanese Corporate Banking (JCB) West Division and the Los Angeles Branch at MUFG Bank, Ltd. He has over twenty years of experience in the banking industry, with a focus on corporate banking, planning, and strategy. Prior to taking the JCB West role in May 2024, he was the head of the JCB Planning and deputy head of JCB for the Americas. In 1999 he joined Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and held various strategic roles within the firm, primarily in the corporate banking and planning divisions in Japan and in the US, where he was able to garner extensive relevant experience. Mr. Fujinami earned a Bachelor of Economics degree from The University of Tokyo.

Nate Gyotoku serves as the president and executive director of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaiʻi (JCCH). The JCCH is a vibrant resource that strengthens the diverse community by educating present and future generations about the evolving Japanese American experience in Hawai‘i. Prior to transitioning to nonprofit work in 2015, Gyotoku gained extensive experience in technology, facilities, and real estate within the private sector. His expertise includes business analytics, project management, product development, sales, marketing, and business management. He received his BA in English Literature from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and is a member of the US-Japan Council.

David Inoue is the executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League. Previously, he served for ten years as the administrative director for a medical shelter for homeless men in Washington, DC. He also worked in health care policy with the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems and with the federal government at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He currently serves on the board of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. He completed a dual BA in Chemistry and Asian studies from Cornell University, and obtained master’s degrees in public health and health administration from Ohio State University. He is raising two children with his wife, Kaori Kawakubo Inoue.

Stan Masamitsu is the CEO and chair of Tony Hawaii Automotive Group, which is currently ranked as the thirty-sixth largest local company and the second largest automobile retailer in Hawai‘i. A thirty-two-year veteran of the automotive industry, Masamitsu is a second-generation auto dealer whose Nisei father, Tony, started the business in Japan in 1967 and moved to Hawai‘i in 1977. He currently serves on the board of directors for the National Automobile Dealers Association and is a graduate of Punahou School in Honolulu and the University of Southern California.

Rick Noguchi is the president and CEO of California Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Previously, he served as the chief operating officer at JANM, where he led the Museum’s strategic direction and oversaw programs and external relations. Positions at the James Irvine Foundation and California Community Foundation have contributed to his extensive experience in programming, planning, fundraising, management, and strategic grantmaking. He is the author of two award-winning collections of poetry, The Wave He Caught and The Ocean Inside Kenji Takezo, and the children’s book, Flowers from Mariko. He earned his MFA from Arizona State University and MBA from Pepperdine University.

Lisa Sasaki is the deputy under secretary for special projects at the Smithsonian Institution, where she provides leadership for the institution in America’s semiquincentennial celebration and in efforts that maximize the institution’s impact online and in communities across the country. Previously, Sasaki was the interim director of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum and the director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. Sasaki has worked in the museum field for twenty-eight years for organizations like the Oakland Museum of California, JANM, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. She has provided further service to the field as president of the Western Museums Association’s Board of Directors and as an advisory council member of the Council of Jewish American Museums.

George Tanaka is a senior vice president of U.S. Bank and leads their Japan practice where he is responsible for delivering programs that provide US-based banking solutions to globally mobile clients. He also collaborates closely with MUFG Bank in Japan and is responsible for developing and introducing new products and services tailored to the Asian consumer market. In this position, he is involved in coordinating marketing and outreach to the Japanese and Japanese American community. He serves on the boards of the Go For Broke National Education Center, Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce, and the National Asian Pacific Islander American Chamber of Commerce and Entrepreneurship. He has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Boston University and is a graduate of the Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington. 

Duncan Ryuken Williams is the Alton Brooks Professor of Religion and the director of the Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture at the University of Southern California. Previously, he held the Ito Distinguished Chair of Japanese Buddhism at UC Berkeley and was the director of Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies. He cocurated the JANM exhibitions Visible and Invisible: A Hapa Japanese American History and Sutra and Bible: Faith and the Japanese American WWII Incarceration as well as the Ireichō, the book of names containing 125,284 persons of Japanese ancestry incarcerated in America’s concentration camps. His latest book, American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War, is the winner of the 2022 Grawemeyer Religion Award and a Los Angeles Times bestseller. 

Audrey Yamamoto is the President & CEO of the US-Japan Council. Previously, she served as the chief operating officer of The Asian American Foundation, the president and executive director of the Asian Pacific Fund, and the executive director of the Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco. With over twenty years of executive leadership experience in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, she has consistently helped organizations maximize their impact while building a collaborative, team-oriented culture. She graduated from the University of California San Diego with a degree in Economics and has an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA with an emphasis in nonprofit management and entrepreneurship.

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About the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)

Established in 1985, JANM promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM is a center for civil rights, ensuring that the hard-fought lessons of the World War II incarceration are not forgotten. A Smithsonian Affiliate and one of America’s Cultural Treasures, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories. JANM is a center for the arts as well as history. It provides a voice for Japanese Americans and a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public in 1992, JANM has presented over one hundred exhibitions onsite while traveling forty exhibits to venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and to several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America. JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation; programs will continue on the JANM campus, throughout Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Southern California, and beyond from early January 2025 through late 2026. For more information, visit janm.org/OnTheGo or follow us on social media @jamuseum.