About Toshihiko
Bio
1. Hobbies and preference I was born in Nagano Prefecture, which hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics. Although Igrew up in Nagano City surrounded by mountains, I actually prefer the sea. I think it isimportant for a man to eat what he personally picks from nature so as not to lose touch withit altogether, so I engage in seasonal activities on that theme such as fishing, forest pickingranging from wild vegetables to mushrooms, digging bamboo shoots, and diving, and thencook my harvests myself as a hobby. My other hobbies include golf and reading mysterynovels. 2. Personal History Having graduated from the same university as Prime Minister Hatoyama (Tokyo University faculty of Engineering), I have joined the very domestic TEPCO rather than moving on to Stamford to become its professor like the now Prime Minister who was already fluent in English then, but later on I have myself began wishing to study advanced business studies in the USA, and applied for a place in TEPCO's overseas study program, and joined the MBA course at MIT Sloane School from 1983 to 1985. I have always wanted to apply science to management since then. I returned to Boston in 2002 when I was seconded to Boston-based Advent International, a venture capital to which TEPCO has invested, and spent 3 years there investing in several US IT ventures. This took my total years spent in Boston to 5 years, making many friends there and turning it into my home away from home. This means I am now fan ofBoston Red Sox and Celtics.3. My mottoNo guts, no glory.4. My expectations at this TED Last time I attended TED 8 years ago, venture IPOs were almost the only topic in town. I am wondering how the Post-Lehman "American Dream" looks like now. I am a senior general manager at Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the largest electric utility in Japan and one of the largest in the World, serving 27 million households. Ihave been involved in ICT and data analysis, and have recently been responsible for leadingTEPCO’s Information and communications business as general manager in charge. I looked after CATV, FTTH, and Business data communications businesses in my tenure, and havebeen responsible for their merger (worth 400 bn. Yen) with KDDI 2 years ago.I am now concentrating on the data center business, where both communications and powerengineering are required at high levels, and now runs AT TOKYO Corporation, which runs Japan’s largest (and one of the largest in the World) data center as President and CEO.