Net worth: $4.1billion Native of Hokkaido, Japan born in 1944. Graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Hokkai-Gakuen University in 1966. Nitori established Nitori Furniture Store in Hokkaido in December 1967, providing low cost furniture and home furnishings for the mass market, where most of its goods were imported from Southeast Asia and China. Nitori opened his second store in 1972, and his business continued to expand across Japan in the following decades.

Education

The main goal was to help graduate students from around Asia to attend Japan's top universities. In 2014 the foundation, which holds a 3.5% stake in Nitori worth more than $660 million, started making grants to colleges in the U.S., Taiwan and Vietnam for scholarships.