Takashi Tanaka: KDDI President

Takashi Tanaka was born on February 26, 1957. He earned an electrical engineering degree from Kyoto University. Takashi also attended graduate school at Stanford University.

He joined KDDI in 1981. Takashi has risen through the ranks and among the positions he has held include Associate Senior Vice President (June 2007), Senior Vice President, Director (June 2010) and was appointed President on December 2010.

KDDI a Japanese telecommunications operator and given the highly competitive environment Takashi has to keep the company on its toes. When he became head of KDDI the company was already facing two years of profit decline in its mobile devices division. It had difficulties in transition to smart phones. This led to subscribers looking for service elsewhere.

Arresting this decline became one of his priorities. He understood that the company has significant human resources which could be tapped.  KDDI in 2012 partnered with HTC, the Taiwanese manufacturing company to sell HTC J mobile phones in Japan.

Takashi has pushed for a two growth strategy using the assets the huge telecommunication company already has at hand most notably having both mobile and fixed-line businesses.  By 2013 KDDI was already achieving increased profits.