Kazuo Wada

Kazuo Wada was a Japanese businessman, the effective founder and chairman of the defunct multinational supermarket and department store chain Yaohan. He took over his parents' small grocery chain in the 1950s and spent the next four decades growing Yaohan into a global company with annual sales of 500 billion yen at its peak. However, Yaohan was unable to sustain its heavy loss and debt burden during the 1997 Asian financial crisis and declared bankruptcy. Almost penniless, Wada spent his later life running a consultancy for young Japanese entrepreneurs.