Yoky Matsuoka
Dr. Matsuoka is Executive Officer of Panasonic Holdings Corporation, where she is responsible for global innovation and new businesses. Prior to joining Panasonic, Dr. Matsuoka brought her distinct mission-driven approaches to leading technology giants. Most recently she served as Vice President in Google's healthcare organization, and before that as Chief Technology Officer at Google/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, Dr. Matsuoka was an endowed professor at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington with expertise in the areas of AI, robotics and neuroscience. During her tenure, she founded and directed the NSF ERC Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and the Neurobotics Laboratory to create devices to restore the human body's capabilities for sensation and movement. Dr. 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.
Dr. Matsuoka received her Ph.D. and S.M. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her B.S. at the University of California, Berkeley, all in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She was featured on Forbes’ 50 over 50: Innovation list and Inc.’s Top Female Founders list in 2023. She is regularly featured in top news outlets including Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Financial Times, TechCrunch and Wired. She resides in the Bay area with her family.