On April 10th, 2024, U.S President Joe Biden met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who began his state visit to the U.S., at the White House. The state dinner was attended by business leaders of both the U.S. and Japan, including Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s executive chairman, Brad Smith, executive vice chairwoman of Microsoft, and Masayoshi Son or Son Jeong-ui, CEO of SoftBank Group Corp (SBG). There was also a Korean there. She is Megan Myungwon Lee, who is the chairwoman and chief executive officer of Panasonic Corporation of North America.  

Lee was born in South Korea. When she was in 3rd grade of middle school, she followed her father and lived for three years in Japan, and after three years, came back to Korea, and then majored in art at Ewha Womans University.

After following her father, who was appointed as an expatriate for a bank in 1987, she moved to Los Angeles in the U.S. and began her relationship with Panasonic. Because she could speak Japanese, she immediately joined Panasonic after coming to LA and worked as Bilingual Secretariat of the in-company Legal Division for about five years. After that, she moved to the Human Resources department and strengthened expertise in the HR department between the U.S. and Japan. In 2015, she became the vice president of the Americans headquarters, and six years later, in 2021, became the CEO of Panasonic.

Lee, who was backward in giving people her views and presentation due to her introverted personality, found it difficult to achieve a better position and better career without overcoming these difficulties. Therefore, she said that she put “what I think I am” in her private space and did her best to expect “me, that others see“ while working at the company.

Lee also was awarded the “Most Powerful and Influential Woman Award” selected by the Tri-State Diversity council in 2016. She said that she is a Korean woman working for a Japanese company and is interested in the diversity of many ethnic minorities. She also said that she thinks that training and discovering female talents from the U.S., Korea and Japan was a must from her point of view in charge of HR department. She also participated in social activities to support the re-employment of Korean women working around Silicon Valley.

Megan Myungwon Lee is leading corporate philanthropic activities such as Panasonic’s ESG activities and is committed to the production of sustainable batteries to begin in 2025.