Laurence W. Bates ’85
Member of the Board of Directors, Managing Executive Officer and General Counsel (Retired), Panasonic Corporation
With degrees from Yale (Chinese Studies) and Harvard Law School, and as a 1985 graduate of IUC, Larry served 35 years as a corporate lawyer in Asia, mostly in Japan with General Electric, and in 2013 as President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. He subsequently held groundbreaking roles as global general counsel and managing executive director of two TSE-listed Japanese companies, first LIXIL Corporation based in Tokyo, and then Panasonic Corporation based in Osaka, from which he retired in 2022. He currently serves on the board of trustees of the Japan-America Society of Washington, DC, and of the Yale-China Association. He recently relocated with his husband Paul Ma and two young children to his hometown of Stonington, Connecticut.
