Sakurako Fisher

Sakurako “Sako” D. Fisher is a cofounder of O2 Initiatives, an organization that supports sabbaticals for executive directors of nonprofit organizations and has served as a trustee of Stanford University for the past decade. She is the past chair of the Smithsonian National Board and past president of the San Francisco Symphony, of which she remains a board member. She has also served as a trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, and the Thacher School in Ojai, Calif., as well as vice chair of the board of the Exploratorium Museum. Other boards on which she has served include Stern Grove, the Asian Art Museum Foundation, the American Hospital of Paris, the American Hospital of Paris Foundation, Alliance Française, Centre Pompidou Foundation, and ODC/San Francisco. Additionally, she currently sits on the U.S. advisory board of the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs and on the advisory board of the Gladstone Institutes. She was also recently appointed to chair the Sister City of Paris Committee.

She has been awarded the ranks of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2006) and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (2022) by the government of France.

Sako was elected to the Stanford Board of Trustees in 2015 and chaired the Land & Buildings Committee. She continues her service to Stanford on the Advisory Council of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Public Art Committee, the Doerr School’s Sustainability Commons Advisory Committee, the Arts Practice Spaces Task Force, and the Philanthropy and Civil Society board. She co-chaired her 25th, 30th, 35th, and 40th reunion campaigns. 

Sako and her husband, William, MBA ’84, reside in San Francisco.