Mr. Yoshio Nishi is retired senior vice president and chief technology officer of the Sony Corporation. He graduated in 1966 from the Faculty of Applied Chemistry of the Department of Technology at Keio University in Tokyo and immediately joined Sony, where he rose through the ranks to become corporate research fellow, vice president, and president of the company’s materials laboratories. He engaged in research and development on fuel cells, materials for electroacoustic transducers, and electrochemical cells with nonaqueous electrolytes. In 1991 his team succeeded in the commercialization of the first lithium-ion secondary batteries (LIB).

 In 1994 he received technical awards from the Electrochemical Societies of both Japan and the United States in recognition of his contributions to LIB technology. He also received the Kato Memorial Award from Kato Foundation for Promotion of Science (Japan) (1998) and the Ichimura Award from The New Technology Development Foundation (Japan) (2000) in recognition of his contributions to LIB technology and the Technical Award from the Japan Society for Biotechnology and Agrochemistry (1998). In 2014 he received the Charles Stark Draper Prize for rechargeable battery pioneers who laid the groundwork for today’s lithium ion battery.