Panasonic Holdings Introduces PanasonicWELL

New division will accelerate innovation to enhance health, wellness, and well-being for families worldwide

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Panasonic Holdings Corporation announces PanasonicWELL, a new global innovation organization inside Panasonic intended to deliver solutions to enable families worldwide to live well. "Well" describes the intersection of health and wellness including mental well-being, longevity, nutrition, sleep health, mindfulness, daily productivity, among other categories that help people to live healthier and happier lives every day. The PanasonicWELL team will accelerate corporate innovation, incubation, and venture strategy for Panasonic and develop new ways to expand reach and enhance the lives of billions of families worldwide.

"PanasonicWELL will help define the future of Panasonic. Informed by a deep understanding of our customers' needs, we'll utilize both the existing product lines and innovative new technology and services to create solutions people need to live healthier lives every day," said Panasonic Group CEO Yuki Kusumi.

To lead this new division, Panasonic has appointed Yoky Matsuoka to serve as the CEO of PanasonicWELL. Matsuoka joined Panasonic in 2019 to drive global innovation and build a wellness ecosystem. In September 2021, Matsuoka launched Yohana, a concierge service for family well-being, the first brand within this wellness ecosystem to advance Matsuoka's vision to help families thrive. In addition to her expanded role, Matsuoka will continue to serve as Managing Executive Officer of Panasonic Holdings, and as Founder and CEO of Yohana.

"Over the past three years, Yoky's forward thinking and entrepreneurial spirit has spearheaded the global transformation Panasonic is striving to achieve," states Group CEO Kusumi.

"My life's mission has been to enable people to become who they want to be through technology," said Matsuoka. "PanasonicWELL is the culmination of that mission and passion because it creates a home for us to grow and scale tools and products families can use to lead more fulfilling lives."

PanasonicWELL will create an ecosystem of solutions to enable modern families to achieve the universal goals of caring well, eating well, sleeping well, moving well, working well and aging well. The ecosystem will serve families through new and existing hardware products with a software-enabled experience, industry-leading Responsible AI with utmost privacy, and human beings serving where technology cannot. PanasonicWELL will incubate new brands and future products focused on health, wellness, and well-being, enhance existing businesses by building a unified platform to service customers, and train next-generation employees to learn new technology and solutions.

The growth of the PanasonicWELL team includes Chip Lutton as the Global Head of Legal. Previously, Lutton has held roles at Apple, Nest Labs, Google and C3 AI, where he has been a key leader in strategic legal counsel. Peter Markatos has joined as the Global Head of Design & Experience for PanasonicWELL. Formerly Global Design Director at Uber, Markatos has spent over two decades building cross-functional, world-class design teams. Brent Collins has joined as the Global Head of the Program Management Office for PanasonicWELL. Collins is a senior business and technology executive with over 25 years of industry and consulting experience at brands like Gap, Inc. and Accenture.

For 105 years, Panasonic has operated as a mission-driven company delivering better products for everyday life worldwide. Under this ethos, Panasonic has transformed everyday tasks, touching the lives of over a billion people every day. By drawing upon the strength of the brand, market share, broad portfolio and trusted position in family lives, Panasonic will provide the insights and resources necessary for the success of PanasonicWELL's vision: to create happier and healthier lives for the modern family.

For more information on PanasonicWELL, please visit panasonicwell.panasonic.com.

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About PanasonicWELL
PanasonicWELL is a new global innovation organization inside Panasonic Holdings Corporation, led by Yoky Matsuoka. Intended to deliver solutions to enable healthier lives every day to families worldwide, "Well" describes the intersection of health and wellness including mental well-being, longevity, nutrition, sleep health, mindfulness, daily productivity, and many topics that enable people to live healthier and happier lives every day. PanasonicWELL is purpose-built to put families at the center- to truly understand their goals, and use state-of-the-art AI and other technologies to help families achieve those universal goals we all share: caring well, eating well, sleeping well, moving well, working well, and aging well.

About the Panasonic Group
Founded in 1918, and today a global leader in developing innovative technologies and solutions for wide-ranging applications in the consumer electronics, housing, automotive, industry, communications, and energy sectors worldwide, the Panasonic Group switched to an operating company system on April 1, 2022 with Panasonic Holdings Corporation serving as a holding company and eight companies positioned under its umbrella. The Group reported consolidated net sales of ¥8.3T JPY (approximately $57.4B USD) for the year ended March 31, 2023. To learn more about the Panasonic Group, please visit: https://holdings.panasonic/global/

About Yohana
Brought to life by leading technologist and mom of four Yoky Matsuoka, Yohana is the first-ever family concierge service for well-being that matches families with a team of specialists to manage their wildly busy lives. Unlike productivity apps that create more to manage, with Yohana, you get a team of real humans that help you get everything done. Meal planning for picky eaters, home repairs that you keep putting off, finding the right after school activities or even being there to make sure you don't forget about your needs, too. Yohana creates space every day for families to prioritize well-being and to thrive. Yohana is part of PanasonicWELL, the new wellness portfolio of Panasonic, one of the oldest purpose-driven brands in the world.

About Yoky Matsuoka
Yoky Matsuoka is the Managing Executive Officer of Panasonic Holdings, CEO of PanasonicWELL and CEO of Yohana. PanasonicWELL is focused on building consumer technology products and services to help people live healthier and happier lives. An accomplished executive and technologist, Matsuoka brings more than two decades of leadership experience to her roles. Prior to Panasonic Holdings/Yohana, Matsuoka brought her distinct approach to human centric design to leading tech giants, most recently as a Vice President at Google's Healthcare organization, and before that as Chief Technology Officer at Nest. Prior to Nest, she was Head of Innovation and co-founder of Google X, the company's research and development lab. She has also served in a senior executive role at Apple and was Chief Executive Officer of Quanttus, a wearable health technology startup. Before her work in Silicon Valley, Matsuoka's career began in academia as an endowed professor at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington. During her tenure, she founded and directed the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and the Neurobotics Laboratory to create devices to restore the human body's capabilities for sensation and movement. Matsuoka received the MacArthur Genius Award for her work in robotics and neuroscience. With this grant she founded YokyWorks Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children with physical and learning challenges, focused on removing reading barriers to unlock the potential of every child.

SOURCE Panasonic Holdings