Yoshito Hori
Globis Corporation
### Globis Corporation

Hori established [Globis Corporation](/wiki/Globis "Globis") in Japan on August 1, 1992 with 800,000 yen (about $7,500 USD) in capital. He first approached his alma mater about opening a Harvard Business School franchise in Japan but was turned down. A licensing agreement was made, however, allowing Harvard case studies to be used. Hori started teaching a single marketing course based on the case study method from a small rented classroom in Shibuya, Tokyo. Additional business subjects such as finance were subsequently introduced. This started Globis Management School (GMS), the company’s business education department.

By 1993 Globis Management School had expanded to three campus locations in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. A joint MBA program with the University of Leicester was launched in 1996, later discontinued in January 2008\. In 2003 the Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (GDBA) was launched, a non\-degree program and predecessor to the later MBA degree offered after the establishment of [Graduate School of Management, Globis University](/wiki/Graduate_School_of_Management%2C_Globis_University "Graduate School of Management, Globis University"). GDBA was discontinued in 2013\.

Globis expanded into several new business areas following Globis Management School. In 1993 a corporate training service was launched. In 1995 Globis’s first MBA book series was published. Executive training programs were added in 2005\. In 2016 the online learning service GLOBIS Manabihodai was launched. The company introduced a LMS platform in 2018\. By 2022, Globis had 691 employees, offices in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, Fukuoka, and Yokohama, and overseas subsidiaries in China, Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Belgium.


Why was Hori initially turned down by his alma mater to open a Harvard Business School franchise in Japan?