Matsushita, Shigenori

2015 Distinguished Alumni Award

For contributions to the technological foundations of digital industries and business leadership, including the development of relations between companies in the U.S. and Japan.

Shigenori Matsushita worked for nearly 40 years for the Toshiba Corporation, and his duties ranged from computer design engineer to executive vice president of Toshiba Information Systems. At Toshiba, his accomplishments included launching the laptop computer project, which eventually led to Toshiba’s notebook computer business. He also negotiated a dozen technical or business alliances and joint ventures between American companies and Toshiba, including the first technical alliance contract in Japan, with Sun Microsystems, and the first distribution contract in Japan, with Netscape.

Matsushita also spent five years as president of the Japanese subsidiary of an American startup, Wink Communications. He is director of the board for fingerprint technology company DDS, Inc., in Japan, and a managing staff member of Friends
of UTokyo, a nonprofit in New York promoting student exchanges between American universities and the University of Tokyo. He also serves as a visiting professor at Chubu University in Japan.

Matsushita is forever grateful for the opportunity to study at ECE ILLINOIS, and his education was funded through the Fulbright Exchange Program and a half-time assistantship in the Digital Computer Laboratory. As a result, Matsushita is passionate about promoting better relationships between the people of the United States and Japan.