Shoichiro Irimajiri
Encyclopedia
was a Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 engineer and businessman.

He earned an aeronautical engineering degree from the University of Tokyo
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...

 and worked for Honda Motor Co., Ltd. for 20 years, overseeing the introduction of its CBX motorcycle, design of their F1
Formula One
Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...

 racing engines for the RA273
Honda RA273
The Honda RA273 was a Formula One racing car used by the Honda team in the 1966 and 1967 Formula One seasons.The engine was re-designed from the RA272's 1,500cc V12 to a brand new 3,000cc V12 due to the change of regulations before the 1966 season...

 as well as being the president of Honda of America Inc. He resigned in 1992 due to a heart problem, and started a Chinese traditional treatment to restore his condition.

During this time, it was said that General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

 actively recruited Irimajiri for a senior executive position at the company, in light of his success at Honda. While he declined that position and accepted a spot as an outside director, if Irimajiri had accepted the offer, he would have been the first Japanese-born automotive executive of an American automobile manufacturer.http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781932234268&view=excerpt

After his recovery, his friend Hayao Nakayama
Hayao Nakayama
Hayao Nakayama is a Japanese businessman and former President 'Sega Enterprises, Ltd '.-Sega:In 1984, he purchased the shares of Sega Enterprises from Bally with the head of a company Rosen purchased in 1979, David Rosen, and the CSK Corporation....

, then president of Sega Corporation, asked him to become vice president of the company. He became president of Sega in 1998, where he laid an ambitious plan using the Dreamcast to restore Sega's lost market share and prestige which took a severe downfall following the flawed launch of the Sega Saturn
Sega Saturn
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe...

 as well as the Sega 32X
Sega 32X
The Sega 32X, codenamed Project Mars, is an add-on for the Mega Drive/Genesis video game console by Sega. Its aim was to increase the lifespan of the aging Mega Drive/Genesis system, which was facing stiff competition from the SNES...

. After Sega reported its third consecutive loss, Irimajiri resigned and Isao Okawa
Isao Okawa
was a Japanese businessman and the former Chairman of Sega.-History:Okawa was born in Osaka, Japan. As a young adult he studied at Waseda University in Tokyo. After graduating from Waseda he formed his own Computer Service Company, which later became known as CSK Holdings Corporation .-Involvement...

 took his place.

He was last a chairman of Asahi Tec, a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese manufacturer of aluminum parts and castings for automobiles, owned by Ripplewood Holdings
Ripplewood Holdings
Ripplewood is an American private equity firm based in New York, New York that focuses on leveraged buyouts, late stage venture, growth capital, management buyouts, leveraged recapitalizations and other illiquid investments....

.
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