Description
Tadashi Yanai is the founder and current CEO of Japanese apparel company Fast Retailing.
Yanai was born in the mining town of Ube in Yamaguchi Prefecture, with his parents running a Western clothing store called Ogori Shoji, of which it was expected that Yanai would take over the family business since he was little.
After graduating from Tokyo’s prestigious Waseda University with a Bachelor’s of economics and politics in 1971, Yanai sold kitchenware and men’s clothing at the Jusco supermarket chain before returning to his family’s clothing shop, becoming managing director of the expanding business in 1984 and opening the first branch of the unisex casualwear store “Unique Clothing Warehouse” in Hiroshima in May 1984.
The name was later shortened to “Uniqlo,” while CEO Tadashi Yanai changed the name of his father’s company Ogori Shoji to “Fast Retailing” in September 1991. By April 1994, there were over 100 Uniqlo stores throughout Japan, and by 1998, the brand boasted 300 branches nationwide.
Fast Retailing is now the world’s fourth largest apparel company boasting over 2,300 retail stores in all major cities worldwide, as well as owning a bevy of brands including Uniqlo, Helmut Lang, Theory, J Brand and GU, clocking in at annual global sales of more than $10 billion USD.
Yanai also serves as the external director for Japan’s Softbank telecommunications corporation, the chairman of G.U., and external director of Nippon Venture Capital Co. Ltd. Yanai himself is worth $21.4 billion USD, and is considered the richest and most successful businessman in Japan and 35th richest person in the world according to Bloomberg in 2014. His two sons are expected to take over his position should he retire.
