STAFF PROFILE

HIDEKO KATSUMATA

Co-founder and Fellow, JCIE/Japan

Hideko Katsumata stepped down in 2024 as the executive director and chief operating officer of the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE). She is now a serving as a Fellow and as a Project Director for JCIE’s democracy program.

Ms. Katsumata joined at the very start of JCIE, in 1969, after graduating from the University of Sacred Heart. For 55 years, she managed the overall operations for JCIE and was also heavily involved in numerous programmatic areas. She currently serves as a board member of the Sacred Heart School Corporation and a member of the board of counselors of the Public Resource Foundation. She is also a Screening Committee member of the ORACLE Volunteer Activities Fund.

Ms. Katsumata has been involved in citizen movements to strengthen the nonprofit sector in Japan and served as a member of the Council for the Reform of the Public Interest Corporations that was created to advise the Prime Minister’s Office. She has served as external director on the board of the Chubu Electric Power Company, a member of the Board of Governors of the Japan Broadcast Corporation (NHK), vice chair of the NHK Advisory Council on International Broadcasting, a member of the Review Committee of Asahi Shimbun, and a member of the board of the Japan NPO Center and of the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium.

She has authored numerous articles on civil society, including “Japanese Philanthropy: Its Origins and Impact on US-Japan Relations” in Philanthropy & Reconciliation: Rebuilding Postwar U.S.-Japan Relations.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

“Japanese Philanthropy: Its Origins and Impact on U.S.-Japan Relations,” Philanthropy and Reconciliation: Rebuilding Postwar U.S.-Japan Relations (2006)

“Levi Strauss Donor Advised Fund in Japan,” Corporate-NGO Partnership in Asia Pacific (1999)