The Most Famous

BUSINESSPEOPLE from Japan

This page contains a list of the greatest Japanese Businesspeople. The pantheon dataset contains 847 Businesspeople, 25 of which were born in Japan. This makes Japan the birth place of the 8th most number of Businesspeople behind Italy, and Russia.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Japanese Businesspeople of all time. This list of famous Japanese Businesspeople is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Japanese Businesspeople.

1. Soichiro Honda (1906 - 1991)

With an HPI of 72.94, Soichiro Honda is the most famous Japanese Businessperson. His biography has been translated into 44 different languages on wikipedia.

Soichiro Honda (本田宗一郎, Honda Sōichirō, 17 November 1906 – 5 August 1991) was a Japanese engineer and industrialist. In 1948, he established Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and oversaw its expansion from a wooden shack manufacturing bicycle motors to a multinational automobile and motorcycle manufacturer.

2. Kiichiro Toyoda (1894 - 1952)

With an HPI of 70.46, Kiichiro Toyoda is the 2nd most famous Japanese Businessperson. His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Kiichiro Toyoda (Japanese: 豊田喜一郎（とよだきいちろう）, Hepburn: Toyoda Kiichirō, June 11, 1894 – March 27, 1952) was a Japanese businessman and the son of Toyoda Loom Works founder Sakichi Toyoda. His decision to change Toyoda's focus from automatic loom manufacture into automobile manufacturing created what later became Toyota Motor Corporation.

3. Akio Morita (1921 - 1999)

With an HPI of 68.93, Akio Morita is the 3rd most famous Japanese Businessperson. His biography has been translated into 37 different languages.

Akio Morita (盛田昭夫, Morita Akio, January 26, 1921 – October 3, 1999) was a Japanese entrepreneur and co-founder of Sony along with Masaru Ibuka.

4. Torakusu Yamaha (1851 - 1916)

With an HPI of 68.19, Torakusu Yamaha is the 4th most famous Japanese Businessperson. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Torakusu Yamaha (山葉寅楠, Yamaha Torakusu, 20 April 1851 – 8 August 1916) was a Japanese businessman and entrepreneur known as the founder of the Yamaha Corporation. Yamaha was the first Japanese manufacturer of the reed organ and established Nippon Gakki Co Ltd in Hamamatsu to produce organs and other musical instruments including pianos and harmonicas. Nippon Gakki was later renamed the Yamaha Corporation in his honor.

5. Iwasaki Yatarō (1835 - 1885)

With an HPI of 66.36, Iwasaki Yatarō is the 5th most famous Japanese Businessperson. His biography has been translated into 30 different languages.

Iwasaki Yatarō (岩崎弥太郎, January 9, 1835 – February 7, 1885) was a Japanese industrialist and financier known as the founder of Mitsubishi, one of Japan's largest conglomerates.

6. Hiroshi Yamauchi (1927 - 2013)

With an HPI of 66.01, Hiroshi Yamauchi is the 6th most famous Japanese Businessperson. His biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Hiroshi Yamauchi (山内溥, Yamauchi Hiroshi, 7 November 1927 – 19 September 2013) was a Japanese businessman and the third president of Nintendo, joining the company on 25 April 1949 until stepping down on 24 May 2002, being succeeded by Satoru Iwata. During his 53-year tenure, Yamauchi transformed Nintendo from a hanafuda card-making company that had been active solely in Japan into a multibillion-dollar video game publisher and global conglomerate. He was the great-grandson of Fusajiro Yamauchi, Nintendo's first president and founder. Hiroshi Yamauchi owned the Seattle Mariners baseball team from 1992 until his death. In April 2013, Forbes estimated Yamauchi's net worth at $2.1 billion; he was the 13th richest person in Japan and the 491st richest in the world. In 2008, Yamauchi was Japan's wealthiest person with a fortune at that time estimated at $7.8 billion. At the time of his death, Yamauchi was the largest shareholder at Nintendo.

7. Masayoshi Son (b. 1957)

With an HPI of 65.35, Masayoshi Son is the 7th most famous Japanese Businessperson. His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Masayoshi Son (Japanese: 孫正義, romanized: Son Masayoshi, Korean: 손정의, romanized: Son Jeong-ui; born 11 August 1957) is a Japanese billionaire technology entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. A third-generation Zainichi Korean, he naturalized as a Japanese citizen in 1990. He is the founder, representative director, corporate officer, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG), a technology-focused investment holding company, as well as chairman of UK-based Arm Holdings. As an entrepreneur, he achieved notability in PC software distribution, computing-related book and magazine publishing, and telecommunications in Japan, starting in the 1980s and booming throughout the 1990s and 2000s. His early $20 million investment in Alibaba Group in 2000 grew substantially over the years, reaching a valuation of around $75 billion by 2014 following Alibaba's IPO and contributing significantly to SoftBank's financial success. SoftBank's 27 percent stake in Alibaba was worth $132 billion in 2018, including additional purchases of the stock since 2000. The morphing of his own telecom company SoftBank Corp. into an investment management firm called SoftBank Group Corp. made him noted worldwide as a stock investor. He is known for his bold investment strategies, sometimes resulting in major losses, particularly with the first and second SoftBank Vision Funds. In 2013, Son was placed 45th on the Forbes magazine's list of the World's Most Powerful People. As of July 2024, Son ranks 55th on the Forbes's list of The World's Billionaires and is #135 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He had for many years the distinction of being the person who had lost the most money in history (more than $59bn during the dot com crash of 2000 alone, when his SoftBank shares plummeted), a feat surpassed by Elon Musk in the following decades. Son was included in Time 100 AI list in 2024.

8. Fusajiro Yamauchi (1859 - 1940)

With an HPI of 64.40, Fusajiro Yamauchi is the 8th most famous Japanese Businessperson. His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Fusajirō Yamauchi (山内房治郎, Yamauchi Fusajirō, November 22, 1859 – January 1, 1940), originally born as Fusajirō Fukui (福井房治郎, Fukui Fusajirō), was a Japanese entrepreneur who founded Yamauchi Nintendo, later known as Nintendo. Yamauchi lived in Kyoto, Japan and had a wife and two daughters—one of whom was Tei Yamauchi, who later married Sekiryō Kaneda, the successor and second president of Nintendo.

9. Mineko Iwasaki (b. 1949)

With an HPI of 62.11, Mineko Iwasaki is the 9th most famous Japanese Businessperson. Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Mineko Iwasaki (岩崎峰子/岩崎究香, Iwasaki Mineko, born Masako Tanaka (田中政子), 2 November 1949) is a Japanese businesswoman, author and former geisha. Iwasaki was the most famous geisha in Japan until her sudden retirement at the age of 29. Known for her performances for celebrity and royalty during her geisha life, Iwasaki was the heir apparent (atotori) to her geisha house (okiya) while she was just a young apprentice. American author Arthur Golden interviewed her for background information when writing his 1997 book, Memoirs of a Geisha. Iwasaki later regretted interviewing for Golden, having cited a breach of confidentiality, and later sued and settled out of court with Golden for the parallelism between his book and her life. In 2002, she released her own autobiography, titled Geisha of Gion in the UK and Geisha: A Life in the US.

10. Shibusawa Eiichi (1840 - 1931)

With an HPI of 61.38, Shibusawa Eiichi is the 10th most famous Japanese Businessperson. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Shibusawa Eiichi, 1st Viscount Shibusawa (渋沢栄一, March 16, 1840 – November 11, 1931) was a Japanese industrialist widely known today as the "father of Japanese capitalism", having introduced Western capitalism to Japan after the Meiji Restoration. He introduced many economic reforms including use of double-entry accounting, joint-stock corporations and modern note-issuing banks. He founded the first modern bank based on joint stock ownership in Japan. The bank was aptly named The First National Bank (Dai Ichi Kokuritsu Ginkō, now merged into Mizuho Bank) and had the power to issue its own notes. Through this bank, he founded hundreds of other joint stock corporations in Japan. Many of these companies still survive to this day as quoted companies in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which Shibusawa also founded. The Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry was founded by him as well. He was also involved in the foundation of many hospitals, schools, universities (including the first women's university), the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and charitable organizations including the Japan Red Cross. Another notable aspect of Shibusawa's career is that, despite being the founder of hundreds of corporations, he refused to maintain a controlling stake in these corporations, effectively preventing himself from forming a zaibatsu. What is known as the Shibusawa zaibatsu was a holding company to look after his estate for his family. The Shibusawa Zaibatsu did not hold any controlling stake in any companies. Despite his humble origin as a farmer, he was granted the title of Viscount, while all other zaibatsu founders were awarded the title of Baron. He was also awarded Shōnii, Second Honour under the ritsuryō rank system, which is usually given to high-ranking nobility and prime ministers. Shibusawa is featured on the 10,000 Japanese yen note, one of the new designs that went into circulation on 3 July 2024. Shibusawa was also printed on bank notes issued by the Korea First Bank, which he owned, in 1902. The choice of Shibusawa has previously been criticised in South Korea.

People

Pantheon has 25 people classified as Japanese businesspeople born between 1799 and 1972. Of these 25, 11 (44.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Japanese businesspeople include Masayoshi Son, Mineko Iwasaki, and Tadashi Yanai. The most famous deceased Japanese businesspeople include Soichiro Honda, Kiichiro Toyoda, and Akio Morita. As of April 2024, 5 new Japanese businesspeople have been added to Pantheon including Mineko Iwasaki, Tanaka Hisashige, and Hiroshi Mikitani.