George Hara

Mr. George Hara was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1952. After graduating from Keio University’s Faculty of Law, Mr. Hara became involved in archaeological research in Central America until the age of 27, following which he enrolled in the Stanford MBA Program in California. After a period serving as a UN Fellow, Mr. Hara received a Master of Science degree from the Stanford University Graduate School of Engineering.

In 1984, Mr. Hara founded DEFTA Partners and went on to become one of the most prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists in the field of telecommunications and technology in the 1980s and ‘90s. Mr. Hara has led more than twenty companies competing with Microsoft for dominance in the software industry – including Borland, PictureTel, SCO, Tradex, and Unify – to success. Since 2000, Mr. Hara has served on the board or helped to manage a number of successfully U.S. and European companies such as Oplus Technologies (Merged with Intel in 2005), Broadware (merged with Cisco in 2007), and Fortinet (NASDAQ IPO in 2009).

In addition to his work in the private sector, Hara is also extensively involved in a number of public sector activities. In Japan, Hara serves as Advisor to the Ministry of Finance, the Prime Minister’s Special Commissioner on the Government Tax Panel, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and as a member of various government committees, including Japan’s Industrial Structure Council of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry; in these capacities, his efforts are aimed at lowering tax rates while increasing tax revenues in order to enable the Japanese government to establish fiscal discipline.

In the United States, Mr. Hara serves as Chairman of the Alliance Forum Foundation, a nonprofit organization that is focused on the further development of PUC technologies and the use of these technologies to improve the standard of living in the developing nations, as well as, the advancement of research and debate into new standards of corporate governance suitable for Post-industrial Capitalism. Mr. Hara has also served on the boards of the San Francisco Opera, University of San Francisco, Tokyo Foundation, Japan Society and the Hara Research Foundation. In 2003, Mr. Hara received the National Leadership Award and was named Honorary Co-Chairman of the Business Advisory Council in the US.

Internationally, Mr. Hara is also involved with the United Nations serving as an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of IIMSAM, Permanent Observer Delegation to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, a intergovernmental organization that works to combat malnutrition across the world. Mr. Hara is also a Representative Ambassador of WAFUNIF. In these capacities, his efforts are aimed at making Japan indispensable to the world’s developing nations.

Mr. Hara is also the author of numerous articles and publications, including a Japanese best-seller entitled 21 Seiki no Kokufuron (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in the 21st Century), published by Heibonsha in 2007, and Atarashii Shihonshugi (New Capitalism) published by PHP Institute in 2009.