Yoshito Hori

Hori has established and supported revitalization efforts in his hometown of Mito in Ibaraki Prefecture. Working with the mayor of Mito, he helped create the Mito Project, an initiative to revive the local area economically through tourism and other activities. In 2016, he purchased the Ibaraki Robots basketball team. In 2019, he became the owner of the Ibaraki Broadcast System.

Just days after the destruction of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Hori launched Project KIBOW to help in the efforts to support and rebuild disaster-affected areas. This project grew into what is now the KIBOW Foundation, as well as the venture firm KIBOW Impact Investment. In 2014, he was named a Young Presidents’ Organization Global Impact honoree for his efforts.

Hori has long stated a passion for strengthening his home country of Japan. In connection with this and inspired by the World Economic Forum, he founded the G1 Summit in 2009 as “a platform for a better Japan.” This evolved into multiple conferences held annually in connection with the G1 Institute, for which Hori serves as president.

Hori worked at Sumitomo Corporation from 1986-1992. He attended Harvard Business School in Boston in 1989 and received his MBA 1991. In 1992, with only $8,000 in venture capital and 20 students, he established GLOBIS Corporation and GLOBIS Management School in a rented classroom in Tokyo, offering individual business courses based on the Harvard case study method. In 1996, he established the venture capital group GLOBIS Capital Partners. In 2003, Hori re-envisioned the school to become GLOBIS Management School, which offered the GLOBIS Diploma of Business Administration. In 2006, after attaining university status from the Japanese Ministry of Education, this became the current, accredited GLOBIS MBA. He continued to grow the university with the Part-time MBA Program in English in 2009, followed by online options in 2017. As of 2020, GLOBIS University Graduate School of Management has multiple campuses across Japan, as well as a presence in Singapore (GLOBIS Asia Campus).