was a Japanese army officer and business leader. Early life and military career Sejima was born in Toyama, Japan. His father, , was an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army who served under General Maresuke Nogi during the Russo-Japanese War, and was later the mayor of the village of Matsuzawa in Nishitonami District, Toyama. Sejima graduated from in 1938. During the Pacific War, he was as a staff officer at the Imperial Headquarters. He instructed the Guadalcanal recovery strategy, New Guinea strategy, and in July 1945 moved out to the Kwantung Army as a staff officer, where he negotiated Japan's cease-fire with Soviet General Aleksandr Vasilevsky. He became a prisoner of war alongside General Otozō Yamada following Japan's surrender in 1945, and was detained for 11 years in Siberia. He was briefly flown from Vladivostok to Tokyo in 1946 to testify at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Most of Sejima's 11 years in Siberia were spent in a prison in Khabarovsk; years later, Sejima inscribed a memorial stone at the Peace Park in the city. Business and political career Following his return from Siberia, Sejima joined C. Itoh & Co. (now Itochu Corporation) in 1958, where he was initially engaged in its aircraft trading business. He became a director in 1962, just four years after joining the company. Sejima led the corporate planning team at C. Itoh, where he implemented military-style reporting methods and formed a group of followers within the company known as the "Sejima machine." He took charge of Itoh's expansion into the oil industry and arranged an alliance between General Motors and Isuzu in 1971. He was also one of three key men involved in Itoh's entry to the People's Republic of China in 1972, making it one of the first Japanese companies to do business with the country. Sejima was also instrumental in Itoh's merger with Ataka & Co. He was promoted to deputy president in 1972, deputy chairman in 1977 and chairman in 1978; he left the chairmanship in 1981 but remained an executive advisor to the company until 2000. During the 1980s, he served as a member of the Ad Hoc Commission on Administrative Reform and as an advisor to Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. In this capacity, he aided council chairman Toshio Doko in the privatization of NTT and the Japanese National Railways. Sejima went on to advise Prime Ministers Keizo