Draft:Tetsuzo MATSUMOTO

Tetsuzo Matsumoto (松本 徹三, born November 15, 1939) is a Japanese businessman and author.

He was formerly the Vice President of SoftBank Mobile (and served as a Senior Advisor to SoftBank Group until March 2020). He is the Chairman of ORNIS Co., Ltd. and the President of Japan Link Co., Ltd. He also serves as the Executive Director of the General Incorporated Foundation for High IQ Certification Support.

Biography

Early Life Matsumoto was born in Tokyo as the youngest of four siblings, with one older brother and two older sisters. When he was three months old, his family moved to Osaka. During his childhood, he lived in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, and Nakano, Tokyo. As the war intensified, he was evacuated to Higashitashi, Ueno District, Tochigi Prefecture. He experienced the end of the war at his evacuation site, where he listened to the announcement of Japan's surrender on the radio. After the war, he returned to Osaka.

Education He entered Ikeda Junior High School (now affiliated with Osaka University of Education) in 1949 and graduated from Osaka Prefectural Kitano High School in 1958. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at Kyoto University in 1962. During his university years, he belonged to a seminar led by Kenichiro Osumi but spent most of his time working part-time as a bartender and did not focus on his studies. He practiced karate (Goju-ryu) at a local dojo before joining the university's karate club (Shito-ryu), where he served as a vice captain.

Career After graduating from Kyoto University, Matsumoto joined Itochu Corporation's Osaka headquarters in 1962, working in the Export Textile Machinery Division. He was stationed in Seoul, South Korea, from 1968 to 1970, and later in Chicago and New York from 1975 to 1980. In 1980, he became the head of the Communications Plant at the Tokyo headquarters, and in 1985, he was appointed as Senior Vice President of the Electronics Division at Itochu America (now Itochu International). He held various positions, including Director of the Communications Division and acting head of the Space Information Division.

In 1996, Matsumoto left Itochu to become independent and established Japan Link Co., Ltd. as a consulting firm. He founded Qualcomm Japan in 1998 and served as its president. In 2005, he became the chairman and senior vice president of Qualcomm's U.S. headquarters, overseeing operations in Japan, Southeast Asia, and Oceania while working on new services for developing countries.

In September 2006, he accepted an offer from Masayoshi Son to leave Qualcomm and became the Executive Vice President of Vodafone Japan. In October of the same year, he was appointed Vice President of SoftBank Mobile, responsible for technology and international strategy. He stepped down as Vice President in June 2011 to become a Special Advisor and left the company a year later.

From April 2013, he served as a specially invited professor at Meiji University for two years. In November 2013, he revived Japan Link Co., Ltd. and entered into advisory agreements with several domestic and international telecommunications companies, including SoftBank.

In April 2019, he established the General Incorporated Foundation for High IQ Certification Support and became its Executive Director. In September 2022, he founded ORNIS Co., Ltd., which provides marine information services using advanced marine radar technology, and assumed the role of Chairman.

Publications Under the pseudonym "Kujitake," he authored three business books in a novel and correspondence format:

For You Who Live in Japanese Companies (Diamond, November 1995). The Great Reform Story of Japanese Companies (Diamond, November 1996). Appointed as Head of New Business Development (Diamond, October 1998). Under the pseudonym "Naoki Tonomura," he wrote two full-length novels and eight novellas from 2003 to 2013, which were later published electronically under his real name, Tetsuzo Matsumoto.

Under his own name, he published:

The Day AI Becomes God: How Singularity Will Save Humanity (SB Creative, July 2017). 2022: Major Axis Shift (Hayakawa Publishing, September 2021). In addition to the above, eight novellas initially written under the name Naoki Tonomura were published electronically under Tetsuzo Matsumoto's name in April and May 2022.