ATTENTION: The webinar start time is changed! Tuesday March 31 2020 at 2:00 pm (CST), 3:00pm (EST), 12:00 noon(PST), 4:30 am (Wed) (JPT)
As part of the 2020 Business and Cultural Speakers series, JASGA will present a seminar entitled "Branding and Marketing Strategy for Japanese Green Tea" by Rona Tison, Executive Vice President for Corporate Relations at ITO EN (North America).
Note: Not only Rona's company, ITO EN, has implemented a no travel policy due to the COVID-19 virus, but also New York State has issued an executive order, "New York on Pause". We are moving this event to a webinar (web-based seminar) in order to guarantee the health and safety for all of our attendees. Our web-based seminar can be just as rewarding.
About Rona Tison
Executive Vice President - Corporate Relations at ITO EN (North America) Inc.
An expert on the tea industry with extensive knowledge and experience with marketing and promoting Japanese culture in the U.S., Ms. Tison is the Executive Vice President of Corporate Relations at ITO EN (North America) Inc., Japan’s #1 green tea brand and the world’s leading distributor of award-winning premium green tea and other healthy beverages.
Ms. Tison is responsible for maintaining and developing the company’s corporate image through public relations and promotional events. In addition to her role at ITO EN, Rona serves on the Board of the Tea Association of the USA and the Tea & Health Committee. She is also on the Advisory Board of the Global Tea Initiative at the University of California-Davis and has been a speaker at the World Tea Expo 
in San Francisco, the Los Angeles and Northwest Tea Festivals, the Shizuoka World Tea Festival in Japan, the James Beard House, and in the Smithsonian Lecture Series.
Ms.Tison was born in the United States but grow up in Okinawa and briefly in Tokyo. Her father is from Brooklyn, New York, where ITO EN’s U.S. offices are located, and her mother is from Tokyo. She received her bachelor’s degree in Asian literature from the University of California at Berkeley, and she’s a member of the U.S. Japan Council, Brooklyn Park Conservancy and Japan Society. She received the 2017 John Harney Lifetime Achievement Award for her educational contributions to the tea industry; she was the first woman to ever receive this prestigious award.
Come make your own kite. We will offer a hands-on workshop for making a kite, and then you can let it fly high in the sky. There will be lots of fun, a screening of a film about a master kite maker of Edo (old-time Tokyo) style Kites presented by Mr. Mikio Toki.
