Seito
Yamamoto

Founder & Principal,
Yamamoto Strategy

I use creativity, analysis, and grit to build digital strategies that scale for progressive causes.

Seito Yamamoto — SEITO YAMAMOTO山本聖斗WASHINGTON, D.C.

Seito seated in an ornate marble hall — SEITO YAMAMOTO山本聖斗WASHINGTON, D.C.

CH 1

PLAY ▶

CH 1Show & tell

CH 2The dinosaur report

CH 3Origami lesson

HOME VIDEOS, 2000 · PRE-YOUTUBE

Growing up, I built the most-watched YouTube channel in Japan. It drew 16 million views with stories from my first-generation Japanese American life. It taught me that the right story, in the right format, for the right audience can move people at scale. I’ve spent fifteen years turning that lesson into progressive infrastructure. Now I help mission-driven teams grow, one strategy memo at a time.

LIVE · WASHINGTON, D.C.LIVE · D.C.09:41

CH 4Worked with

America Votes▲State Voices▲PPFA▲AFL-CIO▲AFSCME▲AARP▲SEIU▲NEA▲UFCW▲APIAVote▲AAJA▲Fair Fight▲Echo19▲America Votes▲State Voices▲PPFA▲AFL-CIO▲AFSCME▲AARP▲SEIU▲NEA▲UFCW▲APIAVote▲AAJA▲Fair Fight▲Echo19▲

Selected work

FOUR FEATURES

NO. 01 · DATA329MA new map of the American electorateA national behavioral segmentation that sorts voting-age individuals into 9 value-based clusters, going beyond demographics and party, plus media consumption models for each audience.

NO. 02 · DATAAIThe first AI governance frameworkI co-authored the company’s first AI policy, which set the standard for how Catalist evaluated and adopted new AI tools, and led company-wide enablement.

NO. 03 · AGENCY1,000+Stacey Abrams & Fair FightMulti-million-dollar digital persuasion across Google, Meta, DSPs, and SSPs, with more than a thousand creatives on tight deadlines, for races at every level up to presidential.

NO. 04 · PERSONAL#1Japan’s most-watched and most-subscribed YouTube channel, 2009–201016M+ views of content rooted in my first-generation Japanese American life, back when the internet was still figuring out what to do with people like me.

II.THE SYSTEM

What I do

ONE CRAFT, MANY CHANNELS

At the core: persuasion & storytelling. Everything else is how the story reaches people.

01Omnichannel paid mediaMulti-million-dollar campaigns, from agency work to in-house programs

02Field organizingHundred-person teams and door-to-door voter contact

03Data, modeling & partnershipsPredictive audiences, voter segmentation, and platform integrations

04Creative development1,000+ ads, from brief to final cut, each one shaped for the screen it runs on

05Creator strategyInfluencer programs with leading AAPI voices

06FundraisingNonprofit fundraising programs across 44 states

07AI governance & strategyResponsible AI adoption policy, plus go-to-market strategy for an AI startup

08Continuous learningPicking up new platforms, tools, and ideas as fast as the field changes

The throughline: I’m drawn to problems where creativity meets systems.

TOOLS

Platforms change every year, so the list matters less than how fast I learn the next one. I treat every “I don’t know” as the start of something, and in the age of AI, curiosity is the real skill.

Lately: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Midjourney, NotebookLM, an open-source LLM I run on my own laptop, and the ever-growing list of new AI tools I’ve yet to encounter.

The road so far

2015 TO NOW · TAP A ROW

I run an independent advisory practice for mission-driven organizations and founders, covering paid media, platform positioning, social, creative, and go-to-market. I’m always open to connecting, so if you’re working on something interesting, reach out.

viiWASHINGTON, D.C. · 2026 TO NOWDirector of Business Development, The Trade DeskNEW

I founded Catalist’s digital strategy and made it operational, especially during COVID, when digitally safe ways to communicate were essential. I built a distribution network of 300+ channels, turned predictive audience models into products, and launched direct integrations with Meta, Google, Snap, and OpenX. Digital grew into the largest share of net revenue, and I co-authored the company’s first AI governance framework.

I led digital persuasion across social, paid, email, and SMS. Within seven days, Facebook engagement rose 700%, and a viral moment on Twitter took daily engagement from 1,000 to 166,000.

I ran multi-million-dollar mixed-media persuasion campaigns for presidential, gubernatorial, and congressional races and ballot initiatives, including Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight. I also built an automated analytics dashboard for 35+ clients.

In 2011, I drove nonprofit fundraising across 44 states. I was later U.S. Representative for Ambassador Caroline Kennedy at the State Department in Tokyo, a field organizer for Catherine Cortez Masto’s Senate race, and a writer and translator. I also co-authored a 2016 Boston Globe piece on foreign policy.

日常· LIFE