JANM Welcomes New Chief Impact Officer

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) welcomes Kenyon Mayeda as the Museum’s new Chief Impact Officer. He will begin on April 1, 2024.

Mayeda brings over twenty years of leadership, strategy, and institution-wide performance and impact to the Museum. He started his career as a JANM intern during the summer of 2004 and has since worked at the Japanese Community Youth Council, Cathay Bank, and most recently at the multicultural advertising agency, TDW+Co, where he rose from Senior Account Executive to Vice President of Operations. Throughout his career he has honed his leadership experience through board service including the Chinese Information Service Center, the California Japanese American Community Leadership Council, and the US-Japan Council, where he is the Southern California Regional Chair.

“We are exceptionally fortunate to have Kenyon join our team. This is a critical position for us as we build for the future. His skill set in leadership, strategy and impact, innovation, operations, and project management as well as his corporate and nonprofit experience, deep connections with the community, and a passionate commitment to our mission will help us build for the future. He credits the hardships and injustice his family experienced during World War II with not only shaping his career choices and his sense of community but also instilling in him the importance of preserving family history and the lessons it teaches us,” said Ann Burroughs, President and CEO of JANM.

“Serving the community in this role is a full circle moment in my career. During college I worked as a development intern at the Museum. My father was born in Manzanar when my grandparents were incarcerated there. Although my grandfather passed away before I was born, his legacy continues through my father’s stories and those I share with my children. My parents added my sister’s names and mine to the Children’s Courtyard in the late 1990s, hoping we’d return. Today, the names of my daughters join ours as the next generation to be connected to and grow alongside JANM,” said Mayeda.

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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 100 exhibitions onsite while traveling 40 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 is open on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday–Sunday from 11 a.m.–5 p.m. and on Thursday from 12 p.m.–8 p.m. JANM is free every third Thursday of the month. On all other Thursdays, JANM is free from 5 p.m.–8 p.m. For more information, visit janm.org or follow us on social media @jamuseum.