Women's Leadership Forum & Networking Luncheon
Bringing together corporate, political, philanthropic, governmental and non-profit sector leaders to champion more active roles for women in decision-making at all levels of society.
2026 Women's Leadership Forum
The 2026 JAST Women’s Leadership Forum & Networking Luncheon was held on Thursday, March 26th at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens in Nashville.
Featured Speaker Jenneen Reed and Guest Speakers Masami Tyson, Krista Wiegand and Yurina Yoshikawa spoke about heeding the call to take action and the demands and needs that may lie ahead.
Event Host
Sponsors
Presenting Sponsor
Event Patron
Event Sponsors
The Mitsui U.S.A. Foundation
Speakers
Jenneen Reed (Kaufman) is the Director of Finance for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, appointed in January 2025. She brings more than 30 years of experience in executive finance and public administration to the role, providing strategic leadership and fiscal oversight for Metro’s financial operations.
Before her appointment as Director, Jenneen served as Chief Financial Officer for the Nashville Symphony, joining the organization in November 2023. Prior to that, she was the Deputy Finance Director and Chief Accountant for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, beginning in June 2021, where she oversaw the Divisions of Accounts, Payroll, Accounts Payable, Treasury, Procurement, and Public Property.
Previously, she spent 24 years with the Tennessee Titans, serving as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Jenneen graduated summa cum laude from the Haslam College of Business in 1992 with a degree in business administration.
After graduating, Reed was an audit division senior accountant for three years at Arthur Andersen. From 1995 to 1997, she served as vice president of finance and human resources for the American Cancer Society. It wasn’t long before she became the Titans’ controller for her first 11 seasons with the team.
As the Titans' CFO, Reed managed the CBA Audit, all player cost accounting, financial reporting and budgeting as well as the accounting of ticket and suite sales, sponsorships, broadcast revenues, player and staff payrolls, along with other special events. In addition, she oversaw the accounting for Nissan Stadium events, such as concerts like the Rolling Stones and the Music City Bowl.
Reed’s community involvement has been extensive – serving on the United Way Board, Ascension Saint Thomas Finance Committee, the Downtown Partnership Board, the Tennessee Society of CPA State Board and Nashville Chapter Board, Inspiritus Board, and is a regular volunteer at her church, First Lutheran.
She was named one of Nashville’s Most Powerful Women in 2011 by the Nashville Post, recognized by the Nashville Business Journal as one of the 2018 CFO Awards honorees, received the 2018 Alumni Professional Achievement Award from the University of Tennessee and is featured in a video produced by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Masami Izumida Tyson is currently Chief of Staff of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County in Tennessee. She was appointed by Mayor Freddie O’Connell in July 2025. Among other duties, Ms. Tyson handles the day-to-day operations of the mayor’s office, acts as the key liaison between the mayor and other agencies, stakeholders, and partners, and helps the mayor achieve his goals.
Born and raised in Yokohama, Japan, Ms. Tyson received her B.A. and M.A. in The Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University. After teaching creative writing at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins, she moved to Nashville in 1995 and taught at private schools. She then attended Vanderbilt Law School where she served as an Executive Editor for the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, served on the Honor Council, and volunteered at the Legal Aid Society. Ms. Tyson received her JD in 2000.
As a lawyer, Ms. Tyson worked as a federal law clerk, as a litigator at the law firm of Neal & Harwell, PLC, and in various in-house positions including at Mentor Graphics Corporation and Nissan North America as a lawyer specializing in complex business agreements, license agreements, and many other types of transactional work. Immediately before assuming her current role, Ms. Tyson was partner at the law firm of Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP, at which she founded and led its Japan Practice Group.
Ms. Tyson also served as the Global Director of Foreign Direct Investment and Trade for the State of Tennessee from 2018 to 2022, during which time she led Tennessee’s global FDI recruitment efforts by maintaining strategic oversight of the state’s international offices and providing support for global companies located in Tennessee. She also built relationships with international, diplomatic, and economic offices from all over the world on behalf of Tennessee.
Ms. Tyson is also the board chair for the Japan-America Society of Tennessee. The face of the organization since 2021, she works closely with the executive director to oversee the organization’s strategy and initiatives. She is also board member and chair of the government relations committee for the U.S.-Japan Council, past board member of Hands On Nashville, and was Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority Commissioner in 2023. Ms. Tyson has been twice named Nashville Post’s “In Charge” Most Influential People list, selected for Nashville Business Journal’s “Nashville Leaders You Need to Know,” and is a recipient of Nashville Business Journal’s Women of Influence award.
Ms. Tyson and her husband Dr. Rich Tyson, a pulmonologist, have three children. Her favorite pastimes include reading, hiking, and spending time with her family.
Dr. Krista Wiegand is Professor and Director of the Center for National Security and Foreign Affairs at the Howard J. Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs. She joined the UTK faculty as Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science in 2014 after nine years on the faculty at Georgia Southern University. She received her PhD in Political Science from Duke University in 2004 with concentrations in International Relations and Security Studies.
As Director of NSFA, she oversees funded research projects with faculty fellows and affiliates, graduate and undergraduate students, pursues policy engagement with government agencies and thinktanks, and provides public engagement on topics of national security and foreign affairs through workshops and hosting guest speakers.
Dr. Wiegand’s research covers territorial and maritime disputes, conflict resolution/management, war and militarized interstate disputes, U.S. national security policy, foreign policy strategies of countries in the Indo-Pacific region, focusing on Japan, China, South Korea, and the Philippines, and international mediation, arbitration, and adjudication of interstate and civil conflicts.
She has published three books: Bombs and Bullets: Governance by Islamic Terrorist and Guerrilla Groups (Routledge, 2010) and Enduring Territorial Disputes: Strategies of Bargaining, Coercive Diplomacy, and Settlement (University of Georgia Press, 2011), The Peaceful Resolution of Territorial and Maritime Disputes (Oxford University Press, 2023), book co-authored with Dr. Emilia Justyna Powell, and is co-editor of the book Islands of Contention: The China-Japan Border Dispute in a Multidisciplinary Perspective (Routledge, 2015). She is currently working on a book project with Dr. Sojeong Lee about the role of territorial and maritime disputes in the strategies of U.S. allies and partner countries in the Indo-Pacific region, in the context of the U.S.-China rivalry.
Yurina Yoshikawa is a writer and educator based in Nashville, Tennessee. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Columbia University, where she also taught undergraduate writing, and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, NPR, Lit Hub, The Japan Times, and elsewhere.
Born in Tokyo and raised moving between Tokyo and California, Yurina brings a lifelong curiosity about identity, language, and belonging to both her creative work and her community projects. In 2024 she was named the inaugural winner of the Southern Prize in Literary Arts and has also been recognized as a South Arts Tennessee Fellow and a Tennessee Arts Commission literary fellowship recipient. She is currently working on a novel centered around a Japanese woman living in Nashville navigating motherhood, grief, and the idea that there are many surprising and poignant similarities between the cultures of Japan and the American South.
Yurina is the former Director of Education at The Porch Writers' Collective. She plays viola with the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra, where she currently serves as Board Chair. Since 2022, she has hosted Reading Between the Lines with the Japan-America Society of Tennessee, leading close readings and conversations around contemporary Japanese literature in English translation. These sessions can be found on the JAST Youtube page. For more information, visit www.yurinayoshikawa.com.
About JAST’s Women’s Leadership Forum
JAST's Women's Leadership Forum brings into focus the critical need to invest in the advancement of women in the U.S. and Japan. By advocating efforts that advance social and economic equality in this way, women from all walks of life stand to benefit from participating in society without gender bias. In turn, their contributions to our mutual society fuel jobs growth, economic and political stability, and inclusive prosperity. Through our respective connections, we all share in the important work of shaping the future of Japan-Tennessee relations.
2024 Women's Leadership Forum
Keynote Speaker
Donna Fujimoto Cole Founder, Cole Chemical & Distributing, Inc. | Donna Fujimoto Cole is a longtime advocate for business, the chemical and energy industry and women and minorities in business. In 1980, Ms. Cole, at the age of 27 with $5,000, founded Cole Chemical & Distributing, Inc., a distributor of chemicals and finished goods to the automotive, aerospace, chemical, energy, refining and personal care industries. As former Vice President of Sales and 26% owner of Del Ray Chemical and 3% owner of Gold King Chemicals, she was encouraged to start her own business by her customers at Exxon, Dupont, Monsanto and Shell. Ms. Cole still has those initial clients and many more thanks to a commitment to competitive prices and round-the-clock personal service. Throughout her career, Ms. Cole has served in both leadership and advisory capacities for numerous industry, academic and nonprofit organizations, including on President George H.W. Bush’s Export Council and the Houston Business Council where she helped start the Women’s Business Enterprise Alliance. Ms. Cole used her extensive chemical industry contacts to locate and purchase a 10-ton railway car in Germany that was used during the Holocaust. The railway car is now on display at the Houston Holocaust Museum. Ms. Cole has received numerous awards and recognition. In 2021, Ms. Cole received the Japanese Imperial Decoration of the Order of the Rising Sun, Silver Rays for her contribution to promoting regional exchange and mutual understanding between Japan and the United States. This year, on October 9th, Ms. Cole will be honored as the 2024 recipient of the Roy M. Huffington Award for Contributions to International Understanding. The award is the highest honor bestowed by Asia Society Texas and distinguishes leaders who have made significant contributions to advancing cultural, social and economic understanding.The daughter of a Japanese American World War II veteran who served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Ms. Cole worked to have the United States Congress recognize the heroic efforts of the Nisei Veterans with the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. She subsequently advised Filipino and Chinese veteran groups how to obtain their own respective congressional recognition. Ms. Cole is a producer of movies, plays and musicals that depict strong women and supportive men to inspire women to take care of themselves and their families and uplift their communities. Guided by her belief in advocating for civil rights, community organizing and the power of mentoring, she shares her insights on overcoming hardship, coming to terms with identity and finding moral courage during difficult times. Ms. Cole is a life-long learner and enjoys connecting people to people for positive change |
Emcee
Yurina Yoshikawa Director of Education at the Porch | Writer, educator and Director of Education at The Porch, Yurina Yoshikawa holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, NPR, Lit Hub, The Japan Times, and elsewhere. Yurina was the winner of the 2020 Tennessee True Stories Contest, 2021 recipient of the Tennessee Arts Commission and 2024 Tennessee State Fellow for the South Arts Prize in Literature. She lives in Nashville with her husband and two sons. |
Panel Moderator
Masami Tyson Jast Board Chair; Partner, Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP | As a Partner in the Corporate & Securities Group at the law firm of Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP, Masami Tyson leads the firm’s Japan Practice. She provides Japanese and global businesses with a wide range of corporate and economic development legal support, including helping clients with understanding the process of setting up operations in the U.S., negotiating complex contracts, and providing advice on a broad range of corporate matters, all in either Japanese or English depending on the clients’ needs. Companies rely on Masami, who has a deep understanding of both the U.S. and Japanese business cultures and extensive experience in both the U.S. and Japanese business communities, as a trusted legal and business advisor. Formerly the Global Director of Foreign Direct Investment and Trade for the State of Tennessee, in that role Masami liaised with international, diplomatic, and economic offices on behalf of Tennessee. She also maintained strategic oversight for all overseas teams tasked with recruiting companies interested in doing business in Tennessee, provided support to companies located in Tennessee, and advised state leadership on matters relating to foreign affairs. Prior to her time with the State of Tennessee, Masami served in several in-house counsel roles, including Senior Counsel for Nissan North America and Legal Director for Mentor Graphics Japan. A native of Yokohama, Japan, Masami received her J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School, where she was a member of the Honor Council, Legal Clinic, Legal Aid Society, and an Executive Editor of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. She received her M.A. and B.A. from Johns Hopkins University, where she received the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts. An active member of the community, Masami is Commissioner of Nashville International Airport, Board Member of the U.S.-Japan Council and Board Chair of the Japan-America Society of Tennessee. She is also on the Board of Hands On Nashville. Masami is married to Dr. Rich Tyson, a physician, and they have three children. |
Panel
Laine Arnold BHA Strategy, Co-Founder & SVP | Laine Arnold is co-founder and senior vice president of BHA Strategy, a Nashville public affairs firm, where she leads the firm’s communications practice. In her role, she specializes in crisis communications and building a tailored offense for principals, corporations and causes. Laine served in Gov. Bill Lee’s first-term cabinet as communications director and senior advisor to the governor. With press secretary and campaign chops, Laine developed a clear offensive strategy for the governor’s office through the prolonged COVID-19 crisis, multiple natural disasters and economic uncertainty. She also served as communications director for Gov. Bill Lee’s re-election campaign. Optimism and resilience are two of her highest values that she refined during her time as a former college athlete, coach and college prep school administrator. Laine is a writer who resides in Nashville with her husband, daughter and son. |
Katherine Knight SVP, Chief Legal & Administrative Officer, Mitsubishi Motors North America | Katherine Knight is the Senior Vice President, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer for Mitsubishi Motors in the U.S. She is the first person to hold this unique, multi-disciplinary role, and the first woman in approximately 25 years to serve as SVP at Mitsubishi Motors. She describes her role as simply one of looking for continuous improvement, whether in operations, branding, compliance, governance, culture, or wherever else it may be found. Aside from CLO and CAO, Katherine holds multiple “C” roles simultaneously, including CHRO, CCO, CRO and Corporate Secretary to the Board of Directors. She leads a cross-functional department comprised of the Legal, Human Resources, Government & Industry Relations, Risk Management, Internal Audit, Facilities & Sustainability, Community Relations & Charitable Giving, Governance and Compliance functions. Katherine began her unique career as a federal law clerk and trial lawyer, moving into an in-house practice with Dollar General Corporation in 2010 and Nissan North America in 2016. Prior to joining Mitsubishi Motors, Katherine was VP, General Counsel, CHRO and Corporate Secretary for USA Truck, Inc. She serves on two industry advisory Boards: Alliance for Automotive Innovation and Autos Drive America. Although originally a lawyer by trade, Katherine is a strong advocate for seeking opportunity, taking risks, trying on new hats, and finding your calling and hopes to inspire other women (and everyone) to do the same. She is currently attempting to learn Japanese, poorly. She holds a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School and a B.A. in Russian Studies and Government from the College of William and Mary. |
Ally Matich Vice President – Land Acquisition, Meritage Homes – Tennessee | Ally Matich is a dynamic leader in land acquisitions and real estate development, currently serving as Vice President of Land Acquisitions at Meritage Homes, Inc., where she leads a team responsible for successfully negotiating, entitling, and acquiring strategic land positions in the Greater Nashville area. Ally oversees the entire acquisition lifecycle, from market analysis and financial underwriting to contract negotiations, and securing capital commitment. Under her leadership, her team secures critical land assets that drive corporate growth, contributing to the company’s broader operational goals. Some of her career accomplishments include underwriting and securing over $954 million in land investments, driving relationships with local governments across the Greater Nashville area, and exceeding growth targets by contracting over 4,500 lots between 2020 and 2024. Her expertise in strategic planning ensures timely land procurement in alignment with market demands. Her leadership extends beyond real estate, as she finds joy in serving within the Meritage Women’s Inclusion Network and representing her division in national diversity and inclusion initiatives. She is also committed to fostering the next generation of talent through her leadership in recruiting and internship programs. Ally’s career is a testament to her ability to navigate complex negotiations while empowering others and driving industry change. She is passionate about fostering inclusion in the workplace and empowering future women leaders in business. In addition to her successful real estate career, Ally Matich dedicates herself to empowering the next generation of young women through her passion for dance. From a young age, Ally traveled nationwide to train with prestigious institutions like the American Ballet Theatre, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, and industry leaders in Los Angeles. She continued her dance journey at the University of Tennessee, where she contributed to the legacy of the seven-time National Champion Dance Team. During her tenure, she and her team achieved two consecutive D1A Jazz National Titles, marking a high point in her collegiate career. After college, Ally joined Nashville Dance Center as a teacher and choreographer, where she continues to inspire both young women and men in dance. Over her six years with the Center, Ally has earned multiple regional and national awards for choreography and technique. Yet, her greatest fulfillment comes from mentoring her students and instilling in them essential life skills that help build resilience and confidence as they transition into adulthood. |
With many thanks to our generous sponsors!
Presenting Sponsor
Event Patron
Event Sponsors
The Mitsui U.S.A Foundation
Event Partner
This program is supported by a grant from the
National Association of Japan-America Societies, Inc.
with the support of the Embassy of Japan in Washington, DC.
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JAST's Women's Leadership Forum brings into focus the critical need to invest in the advancement of women everywhere, but specifically in the U.S. and Japan. By advancing social and economic equality, women from all walks of life
stand to benefit from participating in societies free from gender bias. In turn, both the U.S. and Japan stand to reap rewards aplenty in the form of future jobs growth, economic and political stability, and inclusive prosperity.
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