Tadashi Yanai is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. and has an estimated net worth of $30.4 billion in August 2019. He is the richest person in Japan and 66th among the world's billionaires.

Yanai's Fast Retailing company is the umbrella company for Uniqlo retail stores. In 1984, he opened his first Uniqlo store in Hiroshima and since then, it has gone global. He continues to expand the brand outside Japan. The most recent is the opening of his first store in Indonesia.

First Retailing also owns the Theory and Helmut Lang brands. Tadashi Yanai’s success in converting customers has helped boost the company’s stock price by two-thirds over the past year. He recently announced his plan to retire in 2013, and his successor is still under way. Speculations is that his two sons may take over.

Yanai was a recipient of the International Retailer of the Year Award in 2010 by the National Retail Foundation in the US. He was the fourth Japanese to have won the award, and the first since 1998 when it was won by Masatoshi Ito, the owner and honorary chairman of the Ito Yokado retail group. He was chosen as the best company president in a survey conducted by the Japanese corporate executives of Sanno Institute of Management in 2008 and 2009. He was also included in 2012 on the 50 Most Influential list of Bloomberg Markets Magazine.