Tadashi Yanaii

Tadashi Yanaii is the founder and president of retail holding company Fast Retailing, of which clothing giant UNIQLO is a subsidiary. He is popularly credited for introducing cheap chic fashion clothing to the designer-conscious Japanese youth.Yanaii started his empire with a single clothing store in the city of Hiroshima in 1984. Through a combination of hard work, dedication, aggressiveness and willingness to take risks, Yanaii was able to grow his business from a single store into a chain of 750 stores, which are now going global.

Tadashi Yanaii

In Forbes magazine’s 2009 list of Japan’s 40 Richest people, Yanaii got the top spot, ascending from the 6th position in the previous year. He is currently worth US$6.1 billion, but this does not seem to be enough for this visionary entrepreneur. In an interview with CNN Asia, Yanaii expressed his goal of reaching US$10 billion worth of sales by 2010. When asked how he is going to achieve this goal, the entrepreneur stated with conviction that in order for one to reach great success, one must set a high hurdle for himself/herself (guess this is the secret to his continuous success).