Masuda Takashi

Masuda Takashi 益田 孝
Masuda Takashi
Born	(1848-11-12)November 12, 1848 Sado Island, Niigata prefecture, Japan
Died	December 28, 1938(1938-12-28) (aged 90)
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation	Founder of Mitsui Bussan and Nihon Keizai Shimbun

Baron Masuda Takashi (益田 孝, November 12, 1848 – December 28, 1938), was a Japanese industrialist, investor, and art collector. He was a prominent entrepreneur in Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa period Japan, responsible for transforming Mitsui into a zaibatsu through the creation of a general trading company, Mitsui Bussan. He also established a newspaper, the Chugai Shōgyō Shimpō (中外商業新報), which was later renamed the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

Masuda was born on Sado Island, in what is now Niigata Prefecture. His father was an official in the Tokugawa shogunate, serving as Hakodate bugyō, a position which involved in dealing with foreigners and foreign trade as the sakoku national isolation policy ended in the Bakumatsu period. During this period, the American Consulate General Townsend Harris was based at Zenpuku-ji in Azabu. Takashi served as an interpreter there at the age of 14.

Masuda accompanied Ikeda Nagaoki in the unsuccessful 1863 Second Japanese Embassy to Europe to negotiate the cancellation of the open-port status of Yokohama. On his return he studied English at the Hepburn School (the forerunner of Meiji Gakuin University).