Japan Mourns Death Of Kyocera Founder Kazuo Inamori

Leaders in Japanese business and political circles are grieving the loss of Kazuo Inamori, founder of Kyocera Corp. and KDDI Corp., long revered as a charismatic corporate leader and backer of a two-party system allowing regime change.

Photo Insert: In 2010, Inamori, at age 77, accepted the challenge of rebuilding bankrupt Japan Airlines Corp. at the strong request from the government, the airline overcoming the red ink in just three years.

Inamori died of natural causes at his home in Kyoto on Aug. 24. He was 90. Kyocera announced the news of his death, Asahi Shimbun reported.

Yuki Kusumi, president of Panasonic Holdings Corp., expressed sorrow over Inamori’s passing later that day at a news conference. “I could learn a lot from his many books,” he said. “He was one of the business managers I deeply respected. His death left a hole in my heart.”

Inamori, a native of Kagoshima Prefecture, founded Kyocera in Kyoto in 1959 when he was 27. Under his leadership, the company grew into a leading supplier of electronic devices. He penned numerous books on business management and success in living and work.

His “Kyocera Philosophy,” in which he exhorted the importance of doing the right thing as a person, gained a strong following in and outside of Japan.

Inamori also established one of the predecessors of major mobile carrier KDDI in 1984 as the government was preparing to liberalize the telecommunications industry. What drove him was his firm belief that the monopoly over the industry held by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corp. would not be good for Japan.

“The telecommunications industry could achieve historic realignment as he urged small players to ignore their differences to form a coalition and provide telecommunication services that would genuinely serve the public,” said Takashi Tanaka, chairman of KDDI.

In 2010, Inamori, at age 77, accepted the challenge of rebuilding bankrupt Japan Airlines Corp. at the strong request from the government, led by the Democratic Party of Japan.

He said he took the offer as his philosophy was that a person’s ultimate virtue is serving society and people. “I accepted the job for free to rescue JAL employees, not because the company was Japan’s flag carrier,” he told reporters. He introduced to the struggling airline his “amoeba management method.” The airline overcame the red ink in just three years.

Inamori also played a significant role in the birth of the DPJ administration, which wrested power from the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party in 2009 in an epoch-making event. He was a proponent of a two-party system, preaching the importance of creating a political system where regime change is a realistic possibility.

After the DPJ-led government was formed, he sat on government councils tasked with identifying wasteful uses of tax money and grappling with administrative reforms, wielding enormous influence over the management of the government.

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