About
Keith Kamisugi is the Director of Communications at the Equal Justice Society, a San Francisco-based national strategy group heightening consciousness on race in the law. He is responsible for EJS’s media relations, online strategies and for developing communications coalitions and alliances.
He serves on the boards of Chinese for Affirmative Action, San Francisco Japantown Foundation, Asian Law Caucus, Chinatown Community Development Center and the Nichi Bei Foundation. He was also a member of the Netroots Nation 2009 advisory board.
Keith was a regional spokesman for Verizon Communications, an account manager for tech PR agency Niehaus Ryan Wong and serviced a diverse portfolio of companies as an independent consultant. He also served on the executive staffs of Hawai’i Governors John Waihee and Benjamin Cayetano.
Keith’s legal and nonprofit public relations background includes consulting law firms such as Minami Tamaki LLP on PR and marketing related to class action and civil cases, the Asian Law Caucus on voter education, the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans political action committee, the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) and UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc.
His efforts involving journalists of color include managing communications for several AAJA national conventions and serving as communications director for the UNITY 2004 convention, which was attended by more than 7,000 journalists of color in Washington, D.C. He also helps coordinate the community media training workshops for the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles chapters of AAJA. Keith received AAJA’s national award for Member of the Year in 2004, the only non-journalist/media professional to receive that recognition.
Keith was chairman of the Young Democrats of Hawai’i and president of the Honolulu Japanese Junior Chamber of Commerce. He was on the steering committee of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) for Obama Leadership Council and the boards of APA for Progress, the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, Asian American Theater Company, Hawai’i Chamber of Commerce of Northern California, American Marketing Association of Honolulu, Japanese American Citizens League of Honolulu and on the Bishop Museum Advisory Council.
Keith has delivered presentations before groups and organizations at or affiliated with: the University of California at Berkeley, University of San Francisco, Golden Gate University, The Anderson School at UCLA, Marin County Youth Commission, staff of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Public Relations Society of America, Greenlining Institute, Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education, QUAD Equal Employment Opportunity Training Conference, Oakland Rotary, the SPIN Academy, the Democratic National Committee’s American Majority Partnership, the Opportunity Agenda, API Justice Coalition of Silicon Valley, the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, the Harvard Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and Free Press’s Media Reform Conference.
He attended the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, where he served as undergraduate student body president, founding co-chair of the University of Hawai’i Student Caucus and student representative to the Board of Regents Standing Committees.
