Naoyuki Akikusa

A former chairman, CEO and president of Fujitsu Limited. Naoyuki Akikusa was born in Japan in 1938, joined Fujitsu in 1961 as a systems engineer and worked there for his entire career. After advancing through numerous vice presidential positions, he became president in 1998 and CEO in 2000 and held both positions until 2003 when he became chairman.

Akikusa is known for breaking with traditional Japanese business traditions and leading the company in joint ventures with Verizon, Sun Microsystems and Hitachi. Fujitsu is a Tokyo-based computing and communications company. Founded in 1935, it began producing commercial computers in the mid 1950s and expanded into personal computers in the late 1980s. It is the world's fourth-largest IT services provider, one of the world's top providers of servers and does business with nearly half of the Fortune Global 500 companies.