Tadashi Yanai, chairman, president and CEO of Japanese clothing giant Fast Retailing, received the Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award at the Forbes Global CEO Conference 2025 on Wednesday in Jakarta.
The award recognizes a lifetime of achievement and is a celebration of the global business success bestowed upon an individual who embodies and exemplifies the ideals of entrepreneurship championed by the late Malcolm S. Forbes, the legendary publisher of Forbes.
“Over his remarkable career, Tadashi Yanai reshaped global apparel and redefined how clothing companies operate,” said Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media, as he presented the award to Yanai. “From a single menswear shop in Japan, he built Fast Retailing, parent of clothing brand Uniqlo, into one of the world’s leading apparel retailers, known for its simplicity, quality and affordability.”
In 1972, Yanai took over the men’s clothing business that his father had founded in Yamaguchi prefecture at the western tip of Japan’s main island. Over a decade later he opened a standalone store in Hiroshima called “Unique Clothing Warehouse” for casual wear, eventually shortening the name to Uniqlo as he transformed the company into a global retail empire.
“It is a great honor and pride for me to receive the Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award,” Yanai, 76, said. “It has been the symbol of success in the global business world.”
In conversation with Steve Forbes, Yanai recalled how he has strived to expand Uniqlo’s international presence despite the difficulties he faced entering markets like China and Europe in the past four decades. “Unless you fail 99 times, you can never be successful,” Yanai said. The concept of Uniqlo is somewhere between sportswear and casual wear, added Yanai. “It should make people’s everyday lives comfortable.”
When asked why he named his company Fast Retailing, Yanai said that quick decision making and quick action underlie his business. “You have to fine tune while in action. We have to do things fast,” he added, saying that the company aspires to be number one in the industry.
Today, Uniqlo is Fast Retailing’s flagship brand, and has over 2,500 stores across 25 countries and territories. The Tokyo-listed company saw net profit soar 16% to ¥433 billion ($2.8 billion) in the year ended August 2025 from a year earlier as revenue rose almost 10% to ¥3.4 trillion.
The results were bolstered by strong sales at home, which surpassed ¥1 trillion for the first time. The company also saw record contributions from North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and South Korea, offsetting a continuing slump in sales in China, Uniqlo’s largest overseas market. Fast Retailing’s brand portfolio also includes contemporary labels GU and Theory, which, like Uniqlo, are aimed at fashion, comfort and quality.
With a real-time net worth of $48 billion, Yanai is the second-wealthiest person in Japan according to Forbes Asia’s estimates. He has been stepping up efforts to reach a long-term goal of ¥10 trillion in annual revenue to become the world’s largest clothing retailer, surpassing Inditex, parent company of Zara, and H&M. To achieve this, Yanai said he is hiring designers as well as leveraging AI to harness customer feedback and improve Uniqlo’s designs. Yanai’s advice to entrepreneurs: “Be aspirational and a dreamer all the time. Keep challenging yourself everyday.”
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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