Hideaki Fukutake (born c. 1977) is a Japanese New Zealand businessman and arts patron based in New Zealand since 2009. He is CEO of New Zealand company STILL that is focused on New Zealand-based opportunities to enhance art, culture and community through business, social enterprise and projects. He is a Director of Benesse Holdings in Japan [1] and Chairman of the Fukutake Foundation which operates Benesse Art Site Naoshima and is an important contributor to the world-renowned Setouchi Triennale.
Fukutake was raised in Okayama, Japan and attended Chuo University where he studied a Bachelors of Commerce. [2]
Fukutake is married with three children and lives in Auckland, New Zealand following moving to the country in 2009. [2] [3]
Fukutake's family is known their work creating Benesse Art Site and for revitalising Naoshima, Teshima and Inujima islands in the Seto Inland Sea which were polluted by copper refineries emitting sulphur dioxide and by illegally dumped industrial waste. [4]
Fukutake is a director of Benesse Holdings, Japan, a company founded by his grandfather, [2] and previously worked at Japanese companies SMS Corporation and KEYENCE Corporation. [5]
In 2020, he set up a New Zealand company STILL with the mission to acquire or start 100 New Zealand businesses that are fundamentally good for New Zealand. [2] [6] STILL's interest is companies that enhance art, culture and community and is an intergenerational organisation with a long term outlook. [2]
STILL is a group of New Zealand companies including the World of Wearable Art, SHAPE Energy, [7] National Candles, [8] design agency DDMMYY, [9] Queenstown's Hulbert House Hotel, [10] Consult Recruitment, [11] Auckland's Metro Magazine, [6] and nursery King's Plant Barn. [6]
Tetsuhiko Fukutake founded a publishing company called Fukutake Publishing Co. in the 1950s focusing on education and correspondence. The company later developed simulated exams and correspondence courses and became successful in the field of education. Following Tetsuhiko's death in 1986, Soichiro Fukutake, took over the business. [12] The company's name was changed to Benesse Corporation in 1990 taking the Latin words bene (well) and esse (being). [2] The company's mission is to support people's well-being over the generations. [13] In 2023, Fukutake announced the intention to privatise the company via a management buyout with Swedish investment house EQT. [14]
In 2012 Soichiro Fukutake and his family gifted 5.2% of Benesse stock to launch the foundation which was raised to 8% in 2020. Hideaki Fukutake is expected to take over the foundation. [15]
Queenstown is a resort town in Otago in the south-west of New Zealand's South Island. It has an urban population of 29,000.
Naoshima is an island in Japan's Seto Inland Sea, part of Kagawa Prefecture. The island is best known for its many contemporary art installations and museums. The Town of Naoshima administers Naoshima and 26 smaller islands nearby. As of 2020, the town has an estimated population of 3,026 and a density of 210 persons per km². The total area is 14.22 km².
SkyCity Entertainment Group, also known as simply SkyCity, is a gambling and entertainment company based in Auckland, New Zealand. It owns and operates five casino properties in New Zealand and Australia, which include a variety of restaurants and bars, three luxury hotels, a convention centre and Auckland's Sky Tower.
Berlitz Corporation is a language education and leadership training company which is based in Princeton, New Jersey. The company was founded in 1878 by Maximilian Berlitz in Providence, Rhode Island in the United States. Berlitz Corporation is owned by Berlitz Holdings, a company established through a 100% investment by ILSC Holdings LP, with more than 547 company-owned and franchised locations in more than 70 countries.
Queenstown-Lakes District, a local government district, is in the Otago Region of New Zealand that was formed in 1986. It is surrounded by the districts of Central Otago, Southland, Westland and Waitaki.
Benesse Corporation is a Japanese company which focuses on correspondence education and publishing. Based in Okayama-City, it is the parent company of Berlitz Language Schools, which in turn is the parent company of ELS Language Centers. Benesse is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Singapore Biennale is a large-scale biennial contemporary art exhibition in Singapore, serving as the country’s major platform for international dialogue in contemporary art. It seeks to present and reflect the vigour of artistic practices in Singapore and Southeast Asia within a global context, fostering collaboration and engagement between artists, arts organisations, and the international arts community.
Soichiro Fukutake is a Japanese billionaire, and the former chairman of the Benesse Corporation, a publishing firm and juku company known for its patronage of the arts.
World of WearableArt (WOW) is an international design competition, attracting entries from more than 40 countries each year. The competition features wearable art entries, which are judged on durability, the safety and comfort of the models, and the impact of the design on the stage. During the three weeks of the competition, around 60,000 people attend the event in Wellington. The Gala show for 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19 and was replaced by an exhibit in Wellington. It returned in 2022.
The Chichu Art Museum is a museum built directly into a southern portion of the island of Naoshima in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. It was designed by architect Tadao Ando and opened to the public on July 18, 2004.
When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima is a limited edition CD by English musician David Sylvian that was commissioned as an installation piece by the Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation on the island of Naoshima, Japan, as part of the "NAOSHIMA STANDARD 2" exhibition which ran from October 2006 to April 2007. The album consists of one long ambient instrumental track. Writing in The Guardian, John L. Walters described it as "possibly the most avant-garde product made by a pop musician since Metal Machine Music".
OpenLearning Limited (OLL) is an Australian Securities Exchange listed educational technology company based in Australia that offers a social online learning platform that can deliver massive open online courses (MOOCs), short courses and online degrees.
Shinro Ohtake is a Japanese artist who was born in Tokyo and lives in Uwajima, Japan. He paints, creates installations and designs record covers and book covers. He has published dozens of books, such as a dream diary, a picture book, essays and art books.
Rei Naito is a Japanese artist. Naito's work intersects with minimalism, conceptual art, and environmental art, exploring the ways in which human existence is shaped, felt, and made evident amidst its natural surroundings. Using organic and found materials and creating immersive environments that interact with sound, light, and atmosphere, Naito's practice takes a strong interest in the intimate, ambient, and often transient encounters that arise between individuals and artworks.
Dame Suzie Moncrieff is a New Zealand sculptor and arts entrepreneur, and the founder of the World of Wearable Art show (WOW).
The Setouchi International Art Triennale is a contemporary art festival held every three years on several islands in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan and the coastal cities of Takamatsu and Tamano. The festival was inaugurated in 2010 with the aim of revitalizing the Seto Inland Sea area, which has suffered from depopulation in recent years, as well as long-standing environmental degradation from illegal industrial waste-dumping practices conducting during the 1970s following rapid industrialization in the area.
The following lists events that happened during 2018 in New Zealand.
Yukinori Yanagi is a contemporary Japanese artist.
Hulbert House is a 19th-century Victorian villa on Ballarat St. in Queenstown, New Zealand, overlooking Lake Wakatipu. The house has six suites, each named after notable individuals.
Crimson Education is a for-profit college-prep company headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand.