Yatarō Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi

Iwasaki Yatarō was born in the Tosa domain on December 11, 1834 into a family of former rural samurai status. He was a diligent though mischievous student, and unlike many contemporary samurai he appears to have made a conscious decision to study business and eschew activate politics movement.

Frustrated by discrimination because of the family’s satis as low-ranking samurai and applied by the way Japan’s trade was subordinated to foreign concerns, he swiftly gained a reputation for being impetus and aggressive but also possessing a shrewd business sense and excellent negotiating scales.

The most important influence on Yatarō was Yoshida Toyo, a Tosa official in charge of trade and industry who was the domains leading proponent of Western learning.

Yatarō directed the company Tosa Shoji in Nagasaki in 1867 reorganising it as Tsukumo Co. and transferring it to Osaka, where it became Mitsubishi in 1873. Yatarō became head of the clan;s Osaka branch in 1869 which was then separated from the Tosa clan management and set it up private firm, Tsukumo Shokai, in 1870.

Until 1881 Yatarō could be considered to be a seisho, a merchant who made use of government contacts to build a commercial empire, Yatarō’s particular government support as from Tosimichi Okubo and other progressive bureaucrats.

Iwasaki died of stomach cancer aged 50.
Yatarō Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi