is a Japanese entrepreneur and politician. He founded the Watami chain of

izakaya An () is a type of informal Japanese Bar (establishment), bar that serves alcoholic drinks and snacks. are casual places for after-work drinking, similar to a pub, a Spanish tapas bar, or an American saloon or tavern. Etymology The word e ...

restaurants and headed the company until 2011, when he resigned to run in the 2011 Tokyo gubernatorial election. Watanabe's run for the governorship of Tokyo was inspired by

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman and politician. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P., and was its CEO from 1981 to 2001 and again from 2014 to 2023. He served as the 108th mayo ...

's mayorship of New York City. Watanabe came in third with 16.8%, losing to incumbent governor

Shintaro Ishihara was a Japanese politician and writer, who served as the Governor of Tokyo Metropolis, Governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012. Being the former leader of the Far-right politics, radical right Sunrise Party, later merged with Toru Hashimoto's Japan ...

Career

Watanabe got opportunities to appear as a commentator on

NHK General TV , abbreviated on-screen as NHK G, is the main television service of NHK, the Japanese public broadcaster. Its programming includes news, drama, quiz/variety shows, music, sports, anime, and specials which compete directly with the output of its co ...

NHK Educational TV , abbreviated on-screen as NHK E, is the second television service of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). It is a sister service of NHK General TV, showing programs of a more educational, documentaries, cultural, children's or intellectual n ...

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as (NTV) or Nippon TV, is a Japanese television station serving the Kantō region as the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned and operated by the , a sub ...

and Tokyo Broadcasting TV, raised his name recognition, and was elected to the

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives (Japan), House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers (Japan), House of Peers. If the t ...

representing the Liberal Democratic Party in the 2013 election. As of January 2014, he was the wealthiest member of the House of Councillors with reported personal assets of billion. He is a member of the Committee on Economy and Industry, Committee on Oversight of Administration, Special Committee on Reconstruction after the Great East Japan earthquake, and Research Committee on Deflation-Ending Measures and Strengthening Public Finance for Nationals' Life.

Philanthropy

Watanabe founded the School Aid Japan charity in 2001 to build schools and orphanages in

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

and

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

. In Japan, Watanabe purchased an educational corporation which had been in financial difficulties due to the advice of Hirofumi Shimomura, a member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

and one of

Shinzo Abe Shinzo Abe (21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (Liberal Democratic Party (Japan), LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. ...

's aides. Watanabe is a billboard of Seminar companies of LGAT with

Ikujiro Nonaka was a Japanese organizational theorist and Professor at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy of the Hitotsubashi University, best known for his study of knowledge management. Life and career Nonaka was born in Tokyo on 10 Ma ...

, Jitsuro Terashima and others. Watanabe is giving opportunities of the high school lecture he owns to the presidents of LGAT.

Controversy

The Watami group has faced criticism as a " black company" for its harsh treatment of employees, and was voted the worst company in Japan to work for in 2012 and 2013. The 2008 suicide of Mina Mori, a Watami employee who had worked 140 hours of overtime was ruled a case of ''

karōshi , which can be translated into "overwork death", is a Japanese term relating to occupation-related sudden death. The most common medical causes of karoshi deaths are heart attacks and strokes due to stress and malnourishment or fasting. M ...

'' (death from overwork) by the Kanagawa Prefecture Labor Standards Office, who also accused the company of numerous labor law violations. In December 2015 Watami reached an out-of-court settlement of million (equivalent to million in ) with the family and Watanabe apologised. In addition, at the

nursing home A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of older people, senior citizens, or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as care homes, skilled nursing facilities (SNF), or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms ...

operated by Watanabe, due to carelessness of employees caused by their harsh labor, multiple death accidents occurred. In 2012, Japanese-language magazine

Area Area is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-di ...

reported that Watanabe made a female staffer of its educational corporation his mistress, like "a sexual tool", and abandoned her like garbage with only a notification of mobile e-mail. The educational corporate officer who sympathized with her was fired.

Bibliography

References

External links

* (in Japanese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Watanabe, Miki 1959 births Living people Japanese businesspeople Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) politicians Members of the House of Councillors (Japan) Tokyo gubernatorial candidates Members of the Royal Order of Monisaraphon