Katherine Monahan

Katherine “Kemy” Monahan is a senior US diplomat and career member of the Senior Foreign Service with more than three decades of experience advancing US foreign policy, strengthening international partnerships, and leading complex diplomatic missions. During her 30-year career with the US Department of State, she completed 16 assignments across four continents, serving in senior leadership roles throughout Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific.

Most recently, Monahan served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Tokyo, where she was the embassy’s chief operating officer and principal advisor to the Ambassador. She previously served as Chargé d’Affaires for Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, and as Deputy Chief of Mission to New Zealand, Samoa, the Cook Islands, and Niue. From 2022 to 2023, she served as Director for East Asia at the National Security Council.

Earlier in her career, Monahan held a range of senior economic and policy positions, including assignments with the US Department of the Treasury in Tokyo; Economic, Trade, and Labor Counsellor at the US Embassy in Mexico City; privatisation lead in Warsaw during Poland’s post-communist economic transition; Advisor to the World Bank; and Deputy Executive Director of the Secretary of State’s Global Health Initiative. In addition to her work at the Department of State, Monahan has served with the National Security Council, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, and UNICEF, where she successfully negotiated more than $1 billion in funding to support programs for children worldwide. From September 2025 through March 2026, Monahan was a Visiting Scholar and Japan Program Fellow at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), where she continued her longstanding engagement with Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.

Monahan has been elected by the Japan Society Board of Directors as the organisation’s next President and Chief Executive Officer and will assume the role in August 2026.

She holds degrees from Georgetown University and the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings). She is fluent in Japanese and Spanish, and speaks Polish.