Minoru Makihara

After completing his studies in the United States, Makihara returned to Japan in 1956, and joined Mitsubishi.[1] He split his time between Japan and the United States, and returned to open the group's office in Washington, D.C. in 1971.[1] During this time, he became acquainted with a number of notable figures, including Katharine Graham, owner of The Washington Post.[1] He returned to Japan in the late 1970s, to lead the marine products group that his father had once headed, focusing on exports of salmon and crab.[1][4] In 1987, he became the group's head of international operations; in this role, he spent time in London, New York, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and was noted for his cosmopolitan and international outlook. Outside Japan, during this period, he was known as Ben Makihara.[3] He was made the president and chief executive of the group in 1992.[1][4]

When Makihara took over as the chief executive, the Mitsubishi group was already Japan's largest trading company. However, the Japanese economy had just entered an economic recession, and the company had an unfavorable financial status, with high debts, low profits and an inward-facing management culture;[4] US–Japan relations were then at an all-time low.[4] Makihara was tasked with turning the organization around.[4]

He spoke against the closed nature of the Keiretsu, a Japanese corporate structure representing companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings, and emphasizing the need for more transparency.[3][4] During this period, the group had interests ranging from fine art to aircraft jet engines.[1] Makihara noted that companies in the earlier decade were fueled by the easy money supply bubble in the 1980s, resorting to debt-fueled growth, rather than issuing new equity or focusing on return on equity, resulting in an accumulation of bad debts.[4] His reforms at the group included financial management to recognize portfolio losses and writing off bad investments, engineering cultural and organizational changes at the company to change the corporate mindset from a Japanese trading company to a global conglomerate, and reorienting the business with western corporate principles toward a focus on returns on equity and creation of stakeholder value.[1] The reforms were not without resistance. He was referred to as "the alien," referring to his time spent internationally, and one of his challenges was to convince both employees and the Japanese press of his Japanese credentials.[1][3] During this time, with revenues of US $176 bn (1996), the group was the world's largest corporation by revenues, and operated in over 87 countries, with diverse interests including energy exploration, minerals, chemicals, automobiles, imaging, to information systems.[2]

He became the group's chairman in 1998 and served in that position until 2004.[1] During this time he engineered a partnership between Mitsubishi motors and the German automobile maker, Daimler Chrysler.[5]

He was an advocate for strong US–Japan business relations, through a period in which many Americans viewed Japanese resurgence as a threat to their own economic and global trade domination.[1] He chaired the US–Japan Business Council (1997–2002) and the US–Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange (2008–2014).[1] He served on the board of the American multinational technology company IBM.[6] He was the vice chairman of Keidanren, the Japan Business Federation,[6] and was a member of the Trilateral Commission, a non-governmental policy coordination group established to foster cooperation between Japan, Europe, and North America.[7]