Abbie Yamamoto

Abbie is a committed leader with international experience in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. She began her professional work as a professor and researcher after completing her doctorate at University of California at Berkeley.

Abbie was born and raised in Tsukuba, Japan until 17 and moved to Maine in 2018 after living in Victoria, Canada, and all over the United States. She currently runs Mission Mavens LLC, which advises small to mid-size mission-driven organizations around start-up and sustainable growth. Specifically, she has expertise in start-up, grant-seeking, fundraising, compliance, and governance.

In the past, she served as Executive Director of Portland Adult Education, and as Board chair and then as executive director of MANA - Maine Association for New Americans. As a for-profit business owner, she ran One TransLiteracy, which focused on issues of cross-cultural fluency and cross-linguistic excellence.

She also taught Japanese language, culture, and literature at the university level. She has held faculty positions at Centre College; the University of California, Berkeley; Hamilton College; and Sarah Lawrence College. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College.

Outside of work, Abbie enjoys singing, cat watching with her family, woodblock printing, and drawing.