Masami Izumida Tyson is a partner attorney at the law firm Womble Bond Dickinson (US), LLP. Masami is a member of the firm’s global business group, and her focus is to support Japanese companies through her work in the firm’s Japan practice, which she founded. Masami provides strategic support to meet the business and legal needs of Japanese companies by connecting them and the services provided by the other professionals at the firm. In addition, her specific legal practice areas include corporate and transactional law, economic development, and government relations.
Masami was born and raised in Yokohama, Japan, and has lived in the United States since age 18. She received her B.A. and M.A. in the Writing Seminars at the Johns Hopkins University, where she was a recipient of the Sudler Prize in the Arts. After teaching creative writing at Johns Hopkins and then in high schools in Tennessee, she received her law degree from Vanderbilt Law School. Thereafter she worked as a federal law clerk, a litigator at a law firm, and in various in-house positions such as at Mentor Graphics Corporation and at Nissan North America. Immediately prior to her current position, Masami served as the Global Director of Foreign Direct Investment and Trade for the State of Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development from October 2018 to July 2022. In that role, she worked to create jobs for Tennesseans by recruiting and supporting foreign businesses to and in the State.
Masami serves on boards and committees of several organizations, including the Tennessee District Export Council and Hands On Nashville, and she is the chairperson of the board of the Japan-America Society of Tennessee. She is also a council leader of the national organization, U.S.-Japan Council, and is the founding member and chairperson of its Shin-Issei Group. Masami lives in Nashville with her husband, and they have three children.
