MBA Program

President
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Tokyo, Japan

In late 2004, Keiji Tachikawa assumed the leadership of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) after a long and ground–breaking career in the Japanese telecommunications industry.

His mission at JAXA is an agency turnaround in the wake of a 2003 rocket launch failure. In his new office, Tachikawa has restructured the agency, created a new vision for the future, and focused employees more clearly on innovation.

By early 2005, the situation improved. JAXA successfully launched a new rocket, and later in the year, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi flew on NASA's space shuttle Discovery and conducted experiments on board and at the International Space Station.

Tachikawa observes that “space agencies throughout the world have had problems, and they all need to learn how to recover and succeed. The United States, Europe, and Japan all made important progress in 2005.” He also likens JAXA's public–private partnerships to those in telecom.

A revolutionary figure in telecom

Tachikawa is best known internationally from his key role in revolutionizing telecommunications and making Japan the world leader in advanced mobile communications services.

He joined Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (NTT) as a young engineering graduate of Tokyo University. In 1998, he was tapped to be president of NTT's mobile communications subsidiary, NTT DoCoMo Inc., where he had been serving as executive vice president. By 2000, the mobile upstart was widely considered Japan's most successful company, with the largest market capitalization in the country.

The open secret of that success was a relentless focus on innovation. Through its entirely novel i–mode and 3–g technologies, NTT DoCoMo pioneered the wireless Internet, offering email, Internet connectivity, the ability to shoot and send still photos, and ultimately to transmit real-time video and music clips.

These wildly popular services were a milestone on the way to what Tachikawa has called “the ubiquitous society,” linked by its mobile communications devices.

Focus on innovation, future of technology

Tachikawa stepped down from the DoCoMo presidency in June 2005, when he reached 65, Japan's mandatory retirement age. By the time of his retirement, there were more than 40 million i–mode subscribers around the world, largely through partnerships forged under Tachikawa with local mobile communications providers.

As he says, “The telecommunications industry needs a global standard so that people can use the same technology as they travel. At DoCoMo, we collaborated with many companies throughout the world, and I drew on my MIT Sloan relationships and connections in that process.”

Tachikawa traces his focus on innovation and the future of technology to his formative years in Japan after World War II, when thinking ahead was essential. He was also influenced by his experiences in the United States, which included time at NASA for NTT in the late 1960s and founding and leading NTT America Inc. in the late 1980s, as well as at MIT Sloan.

As a Sloan Fellow, he gained experience that was highly valuable in strategic planning for NTT and in his involvement in the privatization of the Japanese telecom industry during the first half of the 1980s. Tachikawa warmly remembers friendships with classmates — who represented 18 different countries — and faculty members, many of which he still maintains.

Related links

• Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

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