Yukako Yokota

Yukako Yokota joined Flagship Pioneering in 2026 and serves as Vice President, Japan, where she leads business development and strategic partnerships across Japan, with a focus on advancing Flagship's collaboration with leading pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, and healthcare organizations. 

Prior to joining Flagship, Yukako was a Partner at One Capital, an independent venture capital firm, where she led investment sourcing and portfolio support in deep tech and healthcare, while also advising large healthcare enterprises on transformation and digital initiatives. Before that, she spent 15 years as a Partner at McKinsey & Company, advising a wide range of global life sciences companies — including major pharmaceutical firms, biotech ventures, and medical device manufacturers — on large-scale transformation, strategy, R&D, commercial excellence, and digital initiatives across the full value chain. She also supported academic institutions and government bodies on strategy and the commercialization of early-stage research. Earlier in her career, Yukako was a researcher at Biogen in Boston. 

Yukako has published more than 15 papers in high-impact journals including Nature Neuroscience and Neuron, many as first author. Yukako holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and a B.S. in Biochemical Engineering from Tohoku University.