General Manager, Cross Industry-AP/Service Offerings
IBM Asia Pacific
(profile at the time of induction in 1999)
As a development engineer, Yukako Uchinaga assembled and led the team that developed the software to enable IBM computers to work with Asian languages, specifically those requiring "double byte character sets" such as Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
As a woman in a technical field, Ms. Uchinaga had to fight working conditions that discriminated against women in Japan, often skirting the rules in the days before equal opportunity laws were established there. Early in her career, women were restricted to half the over-time hours men were permitted. Ms. Uchinaga worked secretly and "off the clock" to overcome this obstacle and complete her projects.
Today, Ms. Uchinaga is Vice President for Multi-Industry with IBM Asia Pacific, and she leads development teams as head of AP Products. One of her most significant accomplishments was the transformation of the culture and process of AP software development organizations from technical to market driven. She significantly improved customer satisfaction by providing high-quality products in a timely manner.
When Ms. Uchinaga was appointed to the board of directors for IBM Japan in 1995, she was the first woman appointed to the board of any major computer company in that country. She is also a member of the IBM Asia Pacific Women's Council and chairwoman of the IBM Japan Women's Council. She is co-chair of IBM's Global Workforce Diversity Council and a member of the Council for Gender Equality with the Japanese Prime Minister's office.
She has personally supported other women in their quest for advancement, sending women from IBM Japan to a number of U.S. conferences, hosting sessions for technical women in IBM Japan, and representing Asian women's concerns to the IBM executive team.
