Hideo Okubo

Background

Ohkubo was born in Tokyo.

Education

He graduated from the Law department of Kokugakuin University.

Career

He worked at both traditional Japanese large-scaled corporations and the foreign-oriented full-commission based companies and saw the advantages and disadvantages over each other. He thus got the idea to undertake the creation of a company with the advantages of both types of companies. He founded Nippon Kouhan (日本工販) in 1980.

Within a year of its founding, it had already become Japan"s top business telephone leasing company.

In 1988 his company went public on JASDAQ, becoming the youngest company in history to do southern In 2000 Forval Telecom made its first public offering on the Mothers board of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

In 2001 Forval Creative made a public offering on National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation Japan (now the Hercules market of the Osaka Securities Exchange). Ohkubo supports financing and various arrangements that have encouraged past Forval employees and business partners to create their own successful companies, some of which have since gone public.

Achievements

• That same year he won the "Young Entrepreneur of the Year" Award from the New Business Convention. He also works with the Forval Foundation, which sponsors the "Stradivarius Scholarship" to grant the winner of a violinist competition the free use of the foundation"s Stradivarius violin for 2 years.

Membership

He is a leadership committee member of the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, vice-committee chairman of Advancement of New Industry, and vice-chairman of the New Business Convention.