Young Entrepreneurs - Kentaro Iemoto

By age 15, Kentaro Iemoto was a CEO, and author of a Japanese language autobiography entitled "Why I Became A Company President At The Age Of 15".

His story began several years earlier. Kentaro wanted to be a pro baseball player. He gave up on that idea at 11, in 1992, when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He spent all but two and a half months of junior high school lying in a hospital bed.

In the hospital, Kentaro started reading newspapers, and became particularly interested in the stock section. He bought a computer, which introduced him to the Internet.

In 1996 Kentaro underwent surgery. A medical mistake during the procedure left him paralysed from the waist down. Frustrated by the limitations of being disabled, Kentaro decided that something needed to be done.

He wrote in his diary:

The reason why I'm going to start a company isn't for honor, ambition, status or fame. Living in a wheelchair, I realized how difficult and inconvenient it is to communicate with others. I want to create a society where disabled people can get information just as easily as able-bodied persons. The best way to approach this problem is via the Internet.

Kentaro founded Clara Online, a rental server company, with just $9,000 in start-up capital.

In March 1999, he found himself in a crisis situation. He had less than 100 yen in the bank, and couldn't pay his 18 employees.

At just 17 years of age, he felt he had no option but to kill himself.

Instead, he showed true entrepreneurial grit, rounding up investors and staving off bankruptcy.

And, in a truly remarkable demonstration of life's ability to deliver miracles, as he went through the steps of rebuilding his business, he started to regain movement in his feet and legs.

By the age of 20, he had his business back on track, and had returned his disability certificate. He was no longer wheelchair-bound. And by 24 he was managing six data centers in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Seoul from offices in Japan and Taiwan.

The birth of his first child at that time gave him a chance to contemplate work-life balance issues, and his 38 employees are entitled to parental leave, should they choose to take it.

Kentaro is still outspoken, whether he is speaking up about the difficulties faced by the disabled in Japan's monoculture, or criticism of the barriers the Japanese government puts in the way of businesses seeking to hire foreigners to work in Japan.

His company is now on the Asian "watch this space" list, and he was recently featured in Business Week's Top 25 Under 25 listing.