Preface
Former editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar Japan, Misao Itoh, wrote a book about me called Manager: Tomio Taki, the Man who Launched Donna Karan. It was a fantastic text, and I was honored that such a celebrated writer was interested in devoting so much of her own time to telling my story.
After its publication, however, I felt a bit unsettled. The book was great, but it was written in Japanese for a Japanese readership. Although people in Japan may know of my family company, the most extensive international brands that I’ve founded were launched in the United States. In a way, publishing a book in Japanese for only a Japanese readership excludes Americans and other Anglophones from knowing the history behind the brands and labels I helped create.
A longtime friend and industrial psychologist, Dr. Mortimer Feinberg, insisted I address this concern. Since I am still quite busy, it would have been difficult for me to put pen to paper in a timely manner; therefore, I met with a few capable ghostwriters. The first of these had been a sports journalist, and although he made certain points of my story sound more exciting than I thought they were, he didn’t really capture my voice. The second ghostwriter seemed better able to understand how to write a book about entrepreneurship in a straightforward and nondogmatic way. However, I still felt that there was something missing after receiving the draft. Although she understood the concepts founding my train-of-thought and decision-making ...
