Nozomu Sahashi
Nozomu Sahashi (猿橋 望 Sahashi Nozomu?, born September 12, 1951); previously Saruhashi) is the founder of the now-defunct Nova Corporation, previously the major eikaiwa (private school for conversational English) provider in Japan. After graduating from high school, Sahashi went to Paris to attend university and majored in physics although it took him five years to complete a two-year course. The award status of his degree is unknown.
Sahashi was born and raised in Kishiwada, Osaka}. He spent several years jobless after returning from France before founding Nova in 1981 with two foreign English teachers. He is the inventor of Nova's particular teaching method, "The NOVA System Concept", which he patented. The Concept is perhaps most comparable to the direct method of language instruction, although Sahashi's method pivots on the interaction with and the repeating of an instructor who was a native speaker. Sahashi thought a native speaker's voice would alleviate the difficulty of the average Japanese brain to distinguish English from background noise, as Japanese and English languages evoked different brain wave patterns. Sahashi had also patented a video phone camera device, a telephone interpretation (translation) system and an at-home medical examination system which provides a virtual consultation room, a virtual waiting room, a virtual nursing room and a virtual individual conversation room depending upon the desired operation although the system does not provide for actual treatment.
Sahashi was the company's long standing President and CEO until 2007. Following governmental restrictions and a financial crisis in 2007, Sahashi was removed as president by an emergency board meeting for failing to adequately explain his "opaque way of fundraising and negotiating with potential business alliance partners.".
According to the Daily Yomiuri, Sahashi made 159 million yen in 2006, even though his company lost 2.9 billion yen. The Mainichi Shimbun reported that Sahashi and his family's stock in the company rapidly declined over a two-week period in September 2007, from holdings of 70% to 20%. It is believed this was done without filing a legally required report. A possible criminal complaint will be filed with legal authorities by receivers for Nova if it is proven Sahashi sold the stock without first filing the required report with authorities. In 1997, Sahashi paid 900 million yen in taxes, the fifth-highest paying taxpayer in the country.
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