Gen Fukunaga
Gen Fukunaga | |
|---|---|
| 福永 元 | |
| File:Gen Fukunaga by Gage Skidmore.jpg Fukunaga in 2018 | |
| Born | March 22, 1962 Itami, Hyōgo, Japan |
| Alma mater | Purdue University (BSEE, MSEE) Columbia University (MBA) |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1989–2019 |
| Spouse | Cindy Brennan |
| Children | 3 |
is a Japanese-American engineer and business founder. He established Funimation (currently operating as Crunchyroll, LLC), a prominent distributor of anime throughout Canada and the United States, where he served as president and chairman until 2019. As of October 2011, Fukunaga held the position of chairman at the online gaming publisher GameSamba.
Biography
Gen Fukunaga was born in Itami, Hyōgo, Japan, and grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana. After completing his education at West Lafayette Junior-Senior High School in 1979, he earned both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1982 and 1984, respectively. Following his tenure as an engineer with IBM in Florida, he pursued an MBA at Columbia Business School, graduating in 1989. Subsequently, he worked for Andersen Consulting (now known as Accenture) and Tandem Computers based in California.
Fukunaga played a role in founding EchoLight Studios, a Christian television production company headquartered in Texas and led by Rick Santorum, which initially shared office facilities with Funimation.
Although licensing the Dragon Ball series faced initial refusal from Toei Animation, Fukunaga utilized his uncle Nagafumi Hori’s connections within Toei Company to obtain the rights. He convinced Daniel Cocanougher’s family to divest their feed mill enterprise in Texas to invest in Funimation, which was launched in 1994.
In 2005, the Navarre Corporation acquired Funimation for $100.4 million, with Fukunaga continuing as CEO. The company changed ownership again in 2011 when investors including Fukunaga purchased it. By 2017, Sony Pictures Television Networks acquired a 95% stake in Funimation for $143 million; Fukunaga retained a minority interest of 5%.
Fukunaga resigned from his role as Funimation’s general manager in 2019, at which point Sony bought out his remaining shares. Following Sony’s acquisition of the streaming platform the previous year, Funimation merged into Crunchyroll LLC in 2022. The Funimation brand and its services were officially discontinued in April 2024.
During a Columbia Business School seminar held in October 2023, Fukunaga mentioned that having "cashed out twice" from Funimation influenced his decision to retire.
Personal life
Gen Fukunaga is married to Cindy Brennan, who co-founded Funimation and formerly served as its executive producer. Together they have three children. He also has one sister.
External links
- Gen Fukunaga biography at Purdue University Alumni
- Gen Fukunaga at LinkedIn
- Pages with script errors
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with hCards
- 1962 births
- Living people
- American businesspeople in the online media industry
- American mass media company founders
- American people of Japanese descent
- American software engineers
- American television executives
- Anime industry
- Businesspeople from Indiana
- Businesspeople from Texas
- Columbia Business School alumni
- Engineers from Indiana
- Engineers from Texas
- IBM employees
- Japanese emigrants to the United States
- People from Itami, Hyōgo
- People from Roanoke, Texas
- People from West Lafayette, Indiana
- Purdue University College of Engineering alumni
- 20th-century American businesspeople
- Sony Pictures Television employees