Japan’s First Self Made Billionaire Could Have Ended Up In Jail

Yoshiko Shinohara just became a billionaire according to Forbes, but you might be surprised to find out how this woman worked her way to such success in Japan.

Shinohara is the chairman emeritus of Temp Holdings, a temporary staffing agency that she started. According to the company’s website, Temp Holdings now has 16,542 full-time employees and another 21,000-plus part-timers.
So how did she get here?

She first divorced her husband.

“Soon after my wedding, I realized that I would rather not be married, that this was not the right person for me. So I decided I had better divorce as soon as possible,” she said in a 2009 interview with the Harvard Business Review.

At the time of her divorce, women had “boring jobs” according to Shinohara. After moving to Europe, she learned about temporary workers which inspired her to start her own business when she went back to Japan in 1973.

In an HBR biography, she said she launched her business in a one-room apartment in Tokyo.

During the time, temporary employment was an illegal concept in Japan, so she could have landed in jail.

Shinohara once commented, “I used to say to myself: ‘I wonder what it’s like in jail. How big are the rooms? Is there a toilet or a window?'”

Thankfully the law changed and Shinohara is a huge success today.