Jon Iwata

Jon Iwata is Founding Executive Director of the Data & Trust Alliance, a not-for-profit lab which brings together leading businesses to learn, develop and adopt responsible data and AI practices. Members include American Express, Comcast NBCUniversal, CVS Health, GM, Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, Meta, Nike, Pfizer, Starbucks, UPS and Walmart.

He is an Executive Fellow at Yale School of Management, an appointment he received upon his retirement from IBM as SVP and Chief Brand Officer in 2018, capping a 35-year career with the company. At Yale, his work is focused on stakeholder capitalism’s impact on business leadership.

Jon reported to three IBM CEOs during two decades of significant transformation of the technology industry and global business. As IBM Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications, he led the company’s global marketing, communications and corporate citizenship organization for a decade. According to Interbrand, IBM became the second most valuable brand in the world during Jon’s tenure as CMO. He was chairman of IBM’s corporate strategy committee and established the company’s values and policy committee.

Jon is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; a director of the Ladies Professional Golf Association and chair of its nominating and governance committee; a trustee of the Stevenson School, and a member of the advisory board of Responsible Innovation Labs.

He is an inductee of the B2B Hall of Fame, the Marketing Hall of Fame, the CMO Club Hall of Fame and the Page Society Hall of Fame. He was named a Brand Genius by AdWeek. He holds a B.A. from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State University.

Jon is co-inventor of U.S. patent US5049461A for a nanotechnology and process for atomic-scale semiconductors.