Tatsuo Sato

Tatsuo Sato (佐藤 辰男, Satou Tatsuo, born September 18, 1952 in Shizuoka) is an outside director for Koei Tecmo Holdings. Having headed 10 different companies throughout the years, he once served as president and chairman of Kadokawa Corporation.

Sato attended Fuji High School in his hometown of Shizuoka and enrolled at Waseda University's Faculty of Letters, Arts, and Sciences in 1976. Despite wanting to become a newspaper editor at the time, he ended up writing for the Nippon Toys Service which published weekly newspapers for the toy industry. He was tasked with covering computer games when they were still an untapped market product.

Years later, Sato found himself working for Kadokawa Shoten. He helped launch the gaming magazine Comptiq and even received a promotion for his efforts. However, his career took an unexpected turn when a feud ignited between Kadokawa's president and vice president over the direction of their family business. The vice president, who was also the president's younger brother, left the company and took many employees with him including Sato. Together, they established MediaWorks and created the Dengeki magazine series.

Though Sato had been made president and representative director of the newly-formed publisher group, he later returned to Kadokawa Shoten after relations between MediaWorks and his old company were mended. Under his leadership, Kadokawa acquired many subsidiaries and formed alliances with other organizations like Dwango. He was later appointed director and senior advisor on April 2014. In June 2018, he retired from the group and assumed his current position with Koei Tecmo.