Kazuhiro Ogura

Representative Director, President and CEO

Born in Suginami, Tokyo in 1975, Kazuhiro Ogura was first exposed to computers at the age of 6 and was fascinated by their fun. When he was in the third grade of elementary school, the Famicom (NES) boom took off all over Japan, but he was disappointed that he was not given a NES to buy. In his upper elementary school years, his father bought him an MSX, the unified standard for personal computers, and he immersed himself in creating games. He borrowed magazines from the library that contained information on game programming, and as he spent hours every day programming on the MSX, he gradually came to understand the code.

After entering junior high school, he became passionate about music programming, creating background music for games he had made himself, and grew up to be a complete geek. On the other hand, as his adolescence progressed, he became aware of his “lack of competitiveness (unattractiveness) as a man,” and in his first year at Toho High School, he buried his MSX in the garden and parted with his computer. He decided to make a fresh start in life. After that, he enjoyed his youth, playing in a band and serving on the school festival committee. While still in high school, he witnessed the bursting of the bubble economy and felt a vague sense of crisis about the Japanese economy, and decided to study economics. During his year as a rōnin, or a high-school graduate studying for college entrance exams, a casual stop in Akihabara Electric Town led to a shocking discovery: computers had evolved remarkably during his three-year break from using them. The significant advances in performance and technology reignited his interest in PCs.

In 1994, he entered the Faculty of Economics at Hitotsubashi University. While the Internet was beginning to become popular among the public, the research institute where he worked part-time as a programmer decided to connect computers within the organization via a network. His pivotal moment came during the negotiations with network equipment vendors. Recognizing the business potential, he became convinced he could deliver the service more cost-effectively himself. Driven by the belief that a knowledgeable and agile student could surpass large corporations, he decided to found a company, beginning by developing a website and assembling a team.

In 1996, when he was a junior in college, he and five other students and businesspeople started Horizon Digital Enterprises, the predecessor of HENNGE. The company sold servers and networks to corporate clients and became a joint-stock corporation in 1997. In the same year, he became the president and representative director.

Utilizing the programming skills he had cultivated, he concurrently served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO)—a role considered rare for a listed company—until 2025. Around 2010, he foresaw the trend toward cloud computing in the corporate sector and devoted himself to the development of HDE One (now HENNGE One), a cloud security service. He has also placed an emphasis on recruiting engineers, and has made English the official language of the company in an effort to recruit talented people from all over the world. He has established a free Dr. Pepper system based on his belief that “talented engineers must like Dr. Pepper.”

As the embodiment of a globalizing Japanese company, he wears traditional Japanese attire, kimono, 360 days a year. With a strong belief in the potential of IT, he is committed to leading a company that provides IT expertise and information to customers, thereby fulfilling the corporate philosophy of “Liberation of Technology.”

He is a father of three children and took maternity leave in 2019. The funniest mistake in his life was when he forgot to submit his application for the university entrance exam and could not take the exam.