Keiji Tachikawa

Keiji Tachikawa (立川 敬二, Tachikawa Keiji, born May 27, 1939 in Gifu Prefecture) is the president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Keiji Tachikawa was born in Gifu Prefecture on May 27, 1939. He graduated from University of Tokyo, Department of Electrical Engineering School of Engineering, in 1962. In 1978, he earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. In 1982, he earned a Ph.D Engineering degree in University of Tokyo.

Tachikawa joined Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) in 1962 as a young engineering graduate. He later joined NTT's subsidiary, NTT DoCoMo, and served as its president from 1998 to 2004.

In 2004, Tachikawa became president of JAXA, to restructure the agency after a 2003 H-IIA rocket launch failure.