筱原欣子6歲喪父，20多歲離了婚，大學也一直沒畢業。但《福布斯》雜志報道，如今她成了日本第一位白手起家的女性億萬富翁。

1973年，筱原在東京一間一居室公寓里建立了勞務派遣機構天欣福。就像她在2010年接受《金融時報》采訪時所說，在日本歷史的那個時期，許多女性就連做兼職也要詢問丈夫的意見。筱原從中看到了機會。

她說：“社會由男性主宰，大多數女性從事的都是輔助性工作，能主動參與的機會幾乎沒有。我就是在那個時候想到可以拓寬工作環境，讓女性施展她們的技藝，所以我創建了天欣福。”

現在，這家公司已經成為天欣福控股，有313處辦事機構，設在洛杉磯和臺灣等地。《福布斯》報道，去年這家上市公司實現收入45億美元。筱原在天欣福持股25%，最近公司股價上漲12%，讓她的身家達到了九位數。

她告訴《金融時報》：“我覺得我的特性之一就是痛恨失敗。”

筱原的故事是創業熱忱的一例典型。在她想到要建立天欣福時，做臨時工幾乎是非法行為。筱原因此四處游說，讓法律得到了修訂。她也很快意識到，自己這輩子想做的不光是當家庭主婦。

2009年，筱原接受《哈佛商業評論》采訪時說：“舉辦婚禮后我很快就意識到自己寧愿不結婚，我并不適合做那樣的人。所以我覺得自己最好盡快離婚，這個決定讓我的媽媽和兄弟非常生氣。離婚后我說，‘我得自己干點兒什么了’。”

天欣福成為國際大型企業有兩個關鍵推動因素。《哈佛商業評論》認為，第一個因素是筱原決定開始聘用男性經理，這讓天欣福更受主流的歡迎。

“1988年，我問‘我們招幾個男同事怎么樣？’那些[女]經理說，‘不用了，謝謝，我們根本不需要那些生物。’但我們確實需要。一家分公司碰巧請了一位男士來做兼職，喔，銷售額那叫一個增長。”

《金融時報》指出，第二個因素是20世紀90年代日本“失去的十年”，也就是經濟停滯期。為了設法避免使用成本較高的正式員工，用人單位找上了天欣福以及它提供的勞動力。

這讓筱原把自己的領導風格描述為“寄居蟹式管理”。

她說：“寄居蟹出生時很小，蟹殼的尺寸剛好適合那個階段的生活。天欣福成長時，也是這樣出現了組織結構和制度。”

筱原從未打算成為億萬富翁。相反，她曾說過，她只是想通過一家“世人需要的”公司來留下印記。

“我想通過公司為社會做貢獻。”（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

Yoshiko Shinohara lost her father at age six, got divorced in her 20s, and never graduated from college. But today, Forbes is reporting, she is Japan’s first self-made female billionaire.

In 1973, Shinohara founded TempStaff, a staffing agency, from a one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo. As she told the Financial Times in 2010, this was during an era in Japanese history when many female candidates had to check with their husbands before they could even take a temp job. In this, Shinohara saw an opportunity.

“Society was dominated by men with most women working in assistant roles, and there were few opportunities to actively participate,” she said. “It was then I thought I would broaden the workplaces where women could apply their skills, so I launched TempStaff.”

Today, the company that has become Temp Holdings has 313 offices, from Los Angeles to Taiwan. Forbes reports that the publicly traded company had revenues of $4.5 billion last year. With a 25% stake, Forbes says, the recent 12% gain in Temp shares has put Shinohara over the nine-figure mark.

“I say one of my personal traits is that I hate to lose,” she told the FT.

Shinohara’s story is one of textbook entrepreneurial zeal. Temping was mostly illegal when she got the idea for her company, so she lobbied to have the laws changed. She also quickly realized that she wanted to do more with her life than be a housewife.

“Soon after my wedding, I realized that I would rather not be married, that this was not the right person for me.” she told the Harvard Business Review in 2009. “So I decided I had better divorce as soon as possible, a decision that my mother and brother were very angry about. After the divorce, I said, ‘I have to do something with myself.’”

Two key events helped turn Temp into a global juggernaut. The first was Shinohara’s decision to start hiring male managers, which allowed the company to gain more mainstream traction, according to the HBR.

“In 1988, I said, ‘How about if we put some men in here?’ The [female] managers said, ‘No, thank you, we don’t need any of those creatures.’ But we did need them. A branch happened to hire a man as a part-timer, and wow, did sales increase!”

The second, the FT says, was Japan’s “lost decade” of economic stagnation in the 1990s. As companies looked to avoid the higher cost of permanent employees, they turned to Temp and its workers.

This has led Shinohara to describe her leadership style as “hermit-crab management”.

“Born small, the scale of the hermit crab’s shell is appropriate to that stage of its life,” she says. “As TempStaff has grown, so have its organizational structures and systems.”

Shinohara never set out to be a billionaire. Instead, she has said, she just wanted to make a mark, through a business that “is needed in the world at large.”

“I want to contribute to society through business.”