(born March 11, 1965) is a Japanese

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

businessman and writer. He is the founder and CEO of

Rakuten, Inc. () is a Japanese technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate based in Tokyo, founded by Hiroshi Mikitani in 1997. Centered around Rakuten Ichiba, its businesses include financial services utilizing financial technology, as well as digital ...

He is also the president of Crimson Group, chairman of the football club

Vissel Kobe is a Japanese professional football club based in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture. The club plays in the J1 League, which is the top tier of football in the country. The team's home stadium is Noevir Stadium Kobe, in Hyōgo-ku, though some home match ...

, chairman of

Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra The is recognized as the oldest symphony orchestra in Japan. It was founded in 1911 and debuted at the original Matsuzakaya store in Nagoya as the . It relocated to Tokyo in 1938. As of 2005, it has 166 members. The orchestra plays frequently a ...

, and a board member of

Lyft Lyft, Inc. offers mobility as a service, ride-hailing, vehicles for hire, motorized scooters, a bicycle-sharing system, rental cars, and food delivery in the United States and select cities in Canada. Lyft sets fares, which vary using a dynamic ...

Early life and education

Mikitani was born in 1965 and raised in

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...

, Japan.

Peter Gammons Peter Gammons (born April 9, 1945) is an American sportswriter Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted ...

"In Japan, Red Sox have a championship soul mate"

Boston.com ''Boston.com'' is a regional website that offers news and information about the Boston, Massachusetts, region. It is owned and operated by Boston Globe Media Partners, the publisher of ''The Boston Globe''. History ''Boston.com'' was one of t ...

, December 9, 2013. His father Ryōichi Mikitani served as Chairman of Japan Society Of Monetary Economics and was a professor at

Kobe University , also known in the Kansai region as , is a leading Japanese national university located in the city of Kobe, in Hyōgo Prefecture, Hyōgo. It was established in 1949, but the academic origins of Kobe University trace back to the establishment of ...

. His mother Setsuko was a graduate of Kobe University and worked for a trading company; she had attended elementary school in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. Through his paternal grandmother, he claims descent from

Honda Tadakatsu , also called Honda Heihachirō (本多平八郎) was a Japanese samurai, general and daimyo of the late Sengoku through early Edo periods, who served Tokugawa Ieyasu. Honda Tadakatsu was one of the Tokugawa Four Heavenly Kings along with Ii N ...

, one of the

Four Heavenly Kings The Four Heavenly Kings are four Buddhist gods, each of whom is believed to watch over one cardinal direction of the world. In Chinese mythology, they are known collectively as the "Fēng Tiáo Yǔ Shùn" () or "Sìdà Tiānwáng" (). In the a ...

of shogun

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

. His grandmother was born to a

noble A noble is a member of the nobility. Noble may also refer to: Places Antarctica * Noble Glacier, King George Island * Noble Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land * Noble Peak, Wiencke Island * Noble Rocks, Graham Land Australia * Noble Island, Great B ...

family which had fallen on hard times, and raised Mikitani's father as a single mother while running a

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

store. His grandfather was a businessman active in New York, and was a co-founder of

Minolta was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It made the first integrated autofocu ...

. Ryōichi was Japan's first

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

to the USDavid Rowan
"From Pinterest to Kobo, how Japan's Rakuten is building a global internet giant"
''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'', August 22, 2012. and taught for two years at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

; during that time, from 1972 to 1974, the family lived in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. His sister Ikuko is a physician (MD in

Osaka University , abbreviated as , is a public research university located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It is one of Japan's former Imperial Universities and a Designated National University listed as a "Top Type" university in the Top Global University Project. ...

), and his brother Kenichi is a professor of biology at the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

. Mikitani attended

Hitotsubashi University is a national university located in Tokyo, Japan. It has campuses in Kunitachi, Kodaira, and Chiyoda. One of the top 9 Designated National University in Japan, Hitotsubashi is a relatively small institution specialized solely in social sciences ...

, graduating in 1988 with a degree in commerce.

Career

Banking

Mikitani worked at the

Industrial Bank of Japan The Industrial Bank of Japan, Limited (IBJ), based in Tokyo, Japan, was one of the largest banks in the world during the latter half of the 20th century. It combined with Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and Fuji Bank in 2002 to form Mizuho Financial Group ...

(now part of

Mizuho Corporate Bank , or MHCB, was the corporate and investment banking subsidiary of Mizuho Financial Group, the second-biggest Japanese financial services conglomerate, prior to the reintegration of investment banking services under the Mizuho Bank name in July 20 ...

) from 1988 to 1996, with a break from 1991 to 1993 to attend

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

. He left to start his own consulting group, called Crimson Group. Mikitani has stated that the destruction caused by the devastating 1995

Kobe earthquake The , or Kobe earthquake, occurred on January 17, 1995, at 05:46:53 JST (January 16 at 20:46:53 UTC) in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, including the region known as Hanshin. It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale and had ...

made him realize he wanted to help revitalize Japan’s economy, leading to his resignation from banking and decision to start his own business.

Rakuten

In 1996, Mikitani began venturing into the high technology business and started looking at various business models, and decided to launch an online shopping mall. On February 7, 1997, Mikitani founded the

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

company MDM, Inc. with three co-founders and US$250,000 of their own money, launching the online marketplace Rakuten Ichiba in Japan on May 1, 1997. The company was renamed

in 1999, and Mikitani took it public on the

JASDAQ , formerly the is one of the sections of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It was formerly an independent stock exchange. JASDAQ is not related to NASDAQ in the United States, but has operated an electronic trading system similar to NASDAQ. History In 1 ...

in 2000. In founding the company, Mikitani envisioned an online marketplace focusing on the exchange between buyers and sellers, as a hybrid between

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

and

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

.Stephanie Strom
"Online Overseas"
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', June 7, 2000. It started as a small online marketplace with 13 shops and 6 employees, and has since grown into "an e-commerce giant".Eric Pfanner and Alexander Martin
"Rakuten Touts English in Its Growth Push"
''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', November 12, 2015. In 2010, Mikitani changed Rakuten's focus, as the company began expanding outside Japan, with acquisitions of overseas e-commerce sites including Buy.com of the US (now

Rakuten.com Rakuten.com/shop was an e-commerce marketplace based in San Mateo, California. Previously known as Buy.com, it was founded in 1997 by Scott Blum. In 2010, it was purchased by Japanese company Rakuten, and rebranded as Rakuten.com.Claire Cain Mil ...

), PriceMinister of France, and continuing with companies including Canadian e-book service Kobo (now

Rakuten Kobo Rakuten Kobo Inc., or simply Kobo, is a Canadian company that sells ebooks, audiobooks, ereaders and tablet computers. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and is a subsidiary of the Japanese ecommerce conglomerate Rakuten. The name'' Kobo'' ...

), US cashback site

Ebates Rakuten Rewards (), formerly known as Ebates, is a cash-back and shopping rewards company. Its revenue comes from affiliate network links. Members of the site click through affiliate links before shopping at a retailer's site. Once the member m ...

(now Rakuten Rewards), and Cyprus-based messaging app Viber (now Rakuten Viber), and minority stakes in online scrapbooking site

Pinterest Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboard ...

and ride-hailing app

(where Mikitani serves as a board member). Rakuten has business units including travel, e-books, credit cards, online shopping, banking and the

Rakuten Golden Eagles The , often shortened as the , are a baseball team based in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It has played in Nippon Professional Baseball's Pacific League since the team's formation in November 2004. The team is owned by the Internet shopping c ...

baseball team. By 2017, Rakuten had over 14,000 employees, over 42,000 shops on its e-commerce sites, and sales of nearly US$6 billion, with over 100 million members in Japan. Beginning in March 2010, Mikitani implemented a plan that he calls "Englishnization", making English the primary language of Rakuten within two years. While the plan was dismissed as "stupid" by

Honda is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a product ...

president

Takanobu Ito is a Japanese senior business executive at Honda Motor Co. (joined in 1978), who has served as the President, Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer ...

in 2010, Mikitani believes that "English is not an advantage anymore – it is a requirement." He considers the Japanese company's fluency in English, with meetings and reporting done in English, to be a strong advantage for the company globally. In 2011, Mikitani's Englishnization initiative was featured in a ''

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Massach ...

'' case study. Mikitani has been president of Rakuten since its founding, and in 2001 he also became chairman. Among his other titles are Chairman of Rakuten Travel, Chairman of Rakuten Vissel Kobe football club, Director of PriceMinister, Director (Chairman) of

, and Chairman, Representative Director and team owner of Rakuten Baseball. He was named chairman of the

in 2011.

Sports team ownership

In 1995, after an earthquake in Kobe caused significant damage so that the city could no longer maintain the

football club, Mikitani was asked to take over operations of the team. He purchased the team later that year through his company Crimson Group. In 2014 the team was acquired by Rakuten. In 2004, the Japanese

Pacific League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues constituting Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship competes against the winner in the Central League for the annual Japan Series. It currently consis ...

, amidst financial difficulties, dropped two teams, leading to a player strike. Mikitani was approached by league officials about putting together an expansion team in

Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, desig ...

, which would be named the

Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles The , often shortened as the , are a baseball team based in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It has played in Nippon Professional Baseball's Pacific League since the team's formation in November 2004. The team is owned by the Internet shopping c ...

. Mikitani rebuilt, restored and renovated the stadium in Sendai, prior to the team's inaugural season in 2005. The Golden Eagles won the

2013 Japan Series The 2013 Japan Series (known as the ''Konami Nippon Series 2013'' for sponsorship reasons) was the 64th edition of Nippon Professional Baseball's (NPB) championship series known colloquially as the Japan Series. The best-of-seven playoff was won ...

, two years after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Sendai and the Tōhoku region.

Kosmos Holding

In 2017, Mikitani partnered with his friend

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Founded ...

player

Gerard Piqué Gerard Piqué Bernabeu (, ; born 2 February 1987) is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. He is considered one of the best defenders of his generation. Initially a highly promising student at La Masia, Piqué ...

to co-found Kosmos Holding. A holding company and investment group to invest in companies based in the sports, media, and entertainment industries. In 2018, Kosmos Holding acquired the

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...

Tennis property, and Spanish Futbol Club

FC Andorra Futbol Club Andorra is a professional football club based in Andorra la Vella, Andorra, that currently competes in Segunda División, the second tier of the Spanish league system. The club was founded in 1942 and currently plays its home fixtu ...

Keidanren

Mikitani had joined

Keidanren The is an economic organization founded in May 2002 by amalgamation of Keidanren (, Japan Federation of Economic Organizations, established 1946; name sometimes used alone as abbreviation for whole organization) and Nikkeiren (, Japan Federatio ...

, the Japanese business federation in 2004. In June 2011, in the aftermath of the

Fukushima nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...

, he quit the federation, announcing his decision via

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

before sending in his formal letter of resignation, saying it was no longer the same organization he had joined, and he disagreed with its support for continued reliance on the nuclear industry for electricity, and its reluctance to carry out reforms that could help Japan compete internationally. He subsequently pondered setting up a rival body. On June 1, 2012, the Japanese Association of New Economy (JANE) was launched in Tokyo. It was a renaming of the "Japan e-business association", which had been established in February 2010 to open it to non-online businesses. Mikitani currently serves as the

Representative Director Executive director is commonly the title of the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization, government agency or international organization. The title is widely used in North American and European not-for-profit organizations, though ...

of JANE.

Philanthropy

On February 27, 2022, Mikitani announced ¥1 billion donation to the Ukrainian government to support it during the Russian invasion.

Honors and awards

In 2012, Mikitani was awarded the

Alumni Achievement Award, one of the school's highest honors. He was also named to Prime Minister

Shinzō Abe Shinzo Abe ( ; ja, 安倍晋三, Hepburn: , ; 21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 20 ...

's Industrial Competitiveness Council. In 2014, Mikitani was awarded the rank of Chevalier of the

National Order of the Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...

by the French government. In 2017, Mikitani was awarded the

Order of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg The Order of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (French: ''Ordre de Mérite du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg'') is an order of merit of Luxembourg, instituted on 23 January 1961 by Grand Duchess Charlotte. Grand Master (order), Grand Master of the ...

. and the 2017 Spain-Japan Business Contribution Award by the

Spanish Chamber of Commerce The Spanish Chamber of Commerce (Spanish: Cámara de Comercio Española; ) represents the interests of Spain in Taiwan in the absence of formal diplomatic relations, functioning as a ''de facto'' embassy. Its counterpart in Spain is the Taipei Ec ...

."Rakuten wins Spain Japan Business Contribution Award 2017"
''Japan Today'', December 4, 2017.

Bibliography

* ''Principles for Success'' (2007) * ''92 Golden Rules of Success'' * ''Marketplace 3.0: Rewriting the Rules of Borderless Business'' (

St. Martin's Press St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, in the Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under si ...

, 2013) * ''The Power to Compete: An Economist and an Entrepreneur on Revitalizing Japan in the Global Economy'' (with Ryoichi Mikitani,

John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...

, 2014) *''Business-Do: The Way to Successful Leadership'' (

, 2018)

Personal life

Mikitani and his wife Haruko were married in 1993. They have two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mikitani, Hiroshi 1963 births Living people 20th-century Japanese businesspeople 21st-century Japanese businesspeople Businesspeople in online retailing Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Harvard Business School alumni Hitotsubashi University alumni Japanese bankers Japanese billionaires Japanese business writers Japanese chief executives Japanese football chairmen and investors Japanese investors Japanese management consultants People from Kobe Rakuten Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles Vissel Kobe