Yoshio Utsumi was born in 1942 in Takamatsu, a city in Kagawa Prefecture on the Japanese island of Shikoku.
He was not a candidate for reelection in 2006 as the ITU rules do permit more than 2 consecutive periods as secretary-general.
His tenure was marked by achieving significant cost-savings within the organisation and the organisation of the United Nations' World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), whose first gathering took place in two phases, in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005 and involved more than 30,000 attendees, including around one hundred Heads of State and Government.
[1] Utsumi introduced measures that led to a nineteen-percent increase in private sector membership of ITU.
[1] In April 2013 he was awarded The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure in recognition of his achievements.