| Graduated from the Department of Economics at the University of Tokyo. |
Born in 1975, Kenji Kasahara grew up in Osaka Prefecture. He graduated from the Department of Economics at the University of Tokyo.
Inspired by the case studies of IT business he studied in a university seminar on management strategy and by the rapid rise of Internet business in Silicon Valley in the USA, he started up “Find Job !”, an online job information site, in 1997.
In 1999 Kasahara established eMercury, Inc. (mixi, Inc.) and assumed the post of representative director.
In February 2004 he launched “mixi,” the first social networking service in Japan. It was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers market in September 2006. In the four years since the service was started, mixi has been used by about 15 million users (as of July 13, 2007).
