Tomoko Sasaki

Tomoko is an England and Wales qualified lawyer of 12 years PQE who has spent the last decade assisting large Japanese corporates, most notably Hitachi Rail, Sony Europe and Daiwa and continues to assist major Japanese multinationals through her current role as a Senior Immigration Specialist at Baker McKenzie London, covering a wide variety of industry sectors, from aviation, car manufacturers, marine and heavy industries, financial services, media, fashion and restaurants. She also advises Baker McKenzie’s non-Japanese IKCs and leads the Japan Practice within the Firm’s Global Immigration & Mobility Team.

Earlier this year, Tomoko became the Vice Chair of Baker McKenzie’s UK Japan Connect, which aims to become the leading hub for UK and Japanese businesses, people and culture; this is of considerable personal interest to Tomoko, as she is passionate about promoting Japanese culture to young people in particular, and she volunteers at her children’s schools to talk about this topic.

Tomoko was an individual member of The Japan Society for a number of years and particularly enjoyed attending the book club. Her other interests include coaching young people from diverse ethnic and socioeconomical backgrounds, taking part in pro-bono work acting as a lawyer for children filing applications for their citizenship rights and advocating for working parents’ wellbeing at work.

Tomoko is originally from Kanagawa, Japan and she attended a boarding school in Harrogate, North Yorkshire before attending Lancaster University to study her first degree which was in Psychology and rather considers herself as someone from “up North”.