Keith Amemiya


Keith Amemiya is an American business executive and politician who ran in the 2020 Honolulu mayoral election, and in 2022 for lieutenant governor of Hawaii.
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Background

Amemiya is the son of former Hawaii Attorney General Ronald Amemiya. His mother suffered from mental illness and Keith was brought up by various relatives until he moved in with a friend whose father, Bert T. Kobayashi Jr., became Keith's hānai father. After graduating from Punahou in 1983, Amemiya studied finance and law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where he earned his degrees.
Since January 2021, Amemiya has served as executive director of the Central Pacific Bank Foundation. Before running for elected office, he was the senior vice president of Island Holdings, Inc., starting in 2012, and executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association from 1998 to 2010. Until 2019 he was the campaign treasurer for U.S. Senator Brian Schatz, and was appointed by several state leaders to serve on citizen boards, including the Honolulu Police Commission, Hawaii Board of Education, and Aloha Stadium Authority board.

2020 Honolulu mayoral election

With no candidate receiving an outright majority of the vote in the August 8 nonpartisan blanket primary, the top two finishers, Amemiya and Rick Blangiardi, advanced to a runoff on November 3. In the primary, former U.S. representative for Hawaii's 1st congressional district Colleen Hanabusa, former state senator John Carroll, and former mayor of Honolulu Mufi Hannemann were eliminated along with many other candidates. Blangiardi won the runoff with 58.2% of the vote. Japanese in Hawaii are the state's second-largest ethnic group, and Amemiya would have been the first mayor of Honolulu of Japanese ancestry.
In 2025, JL Capital CEO Timothy Lee was indicted for allegedly contributing $13,000 under false names to Honolulu mayoral campaigns in 2020. Amemiya received $5,000 of those contributions and said he did not know about them.

Endorsements

2022 Hawaii lieutenant gubernatorial election

With 23.2% of the vote, Amemiya placed third in the 2022 Democratic primary election for Hawaii lieutenant governor and was thus eliminated.

After elections

In 2023, Governor Josh Green appointed Amemiya to lead the governor's sports task force, which develops sports strategies to benefit Hawaii. In 2024, he was recognized by the task force's parent department for bringing together donors to enable Hawaii's first girl's high school flag football season. Other projects in which Amemiya was involved include the state's first high school surfing championship and a new entertainment center with pickleball courts in downtown Honolulu, both realized in 2025.

Personal life

Amemiya's biological parents divorced when he was 10 years old, and he was raised afterward by a friend's family.
Amemiya met his wife, Bonny, in 1995 when she was the CFO of a local fast food chain. They married in 1996 and have a son.
In February 2021, Amemiya was appointed as executive director of Central Pacific Bank Foundation.