Tomoko Moriguchi-Matsuno (née Moriguchi; born August 25, 1945), also known as Tomoko Matsuno, is an American businesswoman who served as CEO of Uwajimaya from 2007 to 2017.

Biography

Moriguchi-Matsuno was born at

Tule Lake War Relocation Center The Tule Lake National Monument in Modoc and Siskiyou counties in California, consists primarily of the site of the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, one of ten concentration camps constructed in 1942 by the United States government to incarce ...

, the youngest child of

Fujimatsu Moriguchi was a Japanese-born American businessman who founded Uwajimaya in 1928. Biography Moriguchi was born to a family of growers of mikan growers in Yawatahama in 1898, the oldest of the children of Kenshichi Moriguchi and his wife Suwa. Upon gradu ...

and Sadako Tsutakawa. She is the niece of

George Tsutakawa George Tsutakawa (February 22, 1910 – December 18, 1997) was an American painter and sculptor best known for his avant-garde bronze fountain designs. Born in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, he was raised in both the United States ...

. Her family was interned at Tule Lake during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

; Tomoko was the last of 1,490 children born there. After the war, the family moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

's Japantown, where Moriguchi-Matsuno's father re-established Uwajimaya on South Main Street in 1946. Moriguchi-Matsuno succeeded to the position as CEO of Uwajimaya on September 24, 2007 after her older brother Tomio stepped down from the position. Prior to her appointment, she also served as executive vice president of the organization. Besides her position as CEO, she also served as president of Uwajimaya. During Moriguchi-Matsuno's tenure as CEO, Uwajimaya opened its store in

Renton, Washington Renton is a city in King County, Washington, and an inner-ring suburb of Seattle. Situated southeast of downtown Seattle, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington, at the mouth of the Cedar River. As of the 2020 census, the ...

. It also moved one of its stores from

Overlake Overlake is the name for a region comprising parts of eastern Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue and southern Redmond, Washington, Redmond, Washington (state), Washington. It is in the vicinity of Microsoft's main corporate campus and is officially def ...

to a new, larger location in Bellevue. Along with serving in Uwajimaya, Moriguchi-Matsuno also presided over One Reel's board of directors. Moriguchi-Matsuno stepped down from her position as CEO of Uwajimaya on February 24, 2017. Her family received the 2017 Tomodachi Award for their contributions to the relations between Japan and Seattle.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moriguchi-Matsuno, Tomoko 1945 births Living people 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American people of Japanese descent Businesspeople from Seattle Japanese-American internees