Mr. Roger H. Nozaki

Senior Advisor

Mr. Nozaki joined USJF as a senior advisor in September 2025, bringing his extensive experience with philanthropy and social impact strategy to advise and support USJF leadership and staff on initiatives including their work to advance the social sector in Japan.

Over his career, Mr. Nozaki has designed, implemented, advised, and taught strategies for social impact and innovation across corporate, government, nonprofit, philanthropy/family office, and academic sectors. He has developed and led strategies that leveraged a range of resources and partnerships for impact, with focuses from local community to regional, national, and global levels.

Mr. Nozaki is Principal at Peninsula Field Strategies, focused on social impact strategy consulting. He served for nine years as Vice President for Strategy & Programs at the Barr Foundation, where he was a member of the executive team during a period extensive growth and development, and oversaw grantmaking strategies, initiatives, and learning and evaluation for this foundation with roughly $3 billion in assets and $130 million in annual grantmaking. 

Before joining Barr he served as a senior policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Education, working with the Department and the White House to advance equity, innovation, and quality outcomes in higher education. At Brown University, he served as an academic dean, directed the public service center, oversaw the study abroad program and career center, and co-taught a course on the theory and practice of philanthropy. Prior to Brown, he worked for the Hitachi Foundation, which the company had established to explore and exemplify what corporate citizenship meant for a Japanese multinational operating in the U.S.; and held several roles with the GE Foundation, including as executive director.

Mr. Nozaki was selected as a member of the 2025 Japanese American Leadership Delegation (JALD), sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and US-Japan Council (USJC). He has served on many boards and committees, including the 2022 Independent Sector CEO search committee, the Independent Sector board and committees, the Council on Foundations Corporate Committee, the Connecticut College President’s Leadership Council, and the Institute for College Access and Success board. He chaired the board of Innovations in Civic Participation (ICP) and served as one of the leads for a 2014 TOMODACHI grant it received to advance learning between Japanese and U.S. universities on social entrepreneurship and innovation. 

Mr. Nozaki is one of two sons of post-war immigrants from Japan and grew up in the Midwest. He holds degrees from Princeton and Brown Universities, and he and his wife have three children and a dog, and live in Rhode Island.