Prior to founding First Row, Yoko was an active angel investor, earning taking leadership roles within groups like Grubstakes and Seattle Angel Conference.
Early in her career at Google, she worked on Google Books & News and launching ebooks on Google Play. She applied the learning from the immense operational scale of Google to her product-related roles at startups before embarking on the investing path full-time.
Yoko loves to dig into product-led growth and shortening an end user’s “time to delight.” She also has a deep passion for bringing more founders and funders into the ecosystem and balancing the power imbalance between the two sides of the table through education. She relishes discussions about fundraising strategy and narrative.
Yoko serves on the board Sustain Music, an organization that uses music as a way to connect - between genres, people and spaces.