Hiromitsu Ogawa had a vision. After
working for Itel Containers for 12 years
as vice president of marketing for Japan
and Korea, he was ready to set out on his
own, and he wanted to create the world’s
foremost container leasing company.
He borrowed seed capital from a relative and founded CAI International Inc.
in 1989. At the time, he had only three
employees, including himself, and about
5,000 20-foot equivalent units of containers.
In the early stages, Ogawa didn’t pay
himself a salary until the business became
profitable enough to do so. In order to
compete with large shipping companies
and other container leasing firms, he used
created financing, his experience in the
industry and the relationships he had built
at Itel. In 1998, he modified the company’s
focus from the traditional container leasing to include container management,
which gave him more financial freedom
and garnered higher returns than traditional leasing companies.
In May 2007, CAI went public. Today,
the company is one of the world’s leaders and is quickly growing. He’s grown
what little he had in 1989 into 75
employees in 11 offices with 754,000 20-foot equivalent units of containers. On
top of that, nearly one-third of the company’s revenue last year became profit.
As he looks toward the future, this
chairman hopes to expand CAI by purchasing more conventional dry van containers and increasing its refrigerated
containers fleet. Additionally, he will also
look at acquiring smaller companies.
HOW TO REACH: CAI International Inc., (415) 788-0100 or
www.caiintl.com