Lisa Katayama

Principal

Lisa is a Principal at SYPartners, where she leads a range of cultural transformation projects in San Francisco, New York, and Tokyo.

Prior to SYP, she was the co-founder of the MIT Media Lab’s Director’s Fellows Program, which catalyzes collaborations between the technologies of the MIT Media Lab and creative change-makers all over the world. Lisa also founded The Tofu Project, a small nonprofit that empowers social activists and entrepreneurs in Japan with leadership and design thinking tools. She was once a tech and culture journalist for outlets such as Wired, Popular Science, The New York Times Magazine, Boing Boing, and PRI’s Studio360.

Lisa is a U.S. Japan Leadership Program Fellow, a 2015 Asia Society Young Leader, and was one of Forbes Japan’s Top Women to Watch in 2018. She holds a B.A. from Tufts University and a M.A. from Columbia University.