Alberto Kenya Fujimori Inomoto

Alberto Kenya Fujimori was born in Lima to Japanese immigrant parents from Kumamoto Prefecture. He studied agricultural engineering at the National Agrarian University La Molina and earned a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, later serving as rector of La Molina and host of an educational television talk show.

In 1990, running as a political outsider with the Cambio 90 movement, Fujimori pulled off a stunning electoral upset against novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. Facing hyperinflation and brutal insurgencies by the Shining Path and MRTA, Fujimori enacted radical free-market reforms ("Fujishock") and in 1992 carried out an "auto-coup" dissolving Congress. His administration successfully captured Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán and restored macroeconomic stability. However, amid widespread corruption scandals orchestrated by his spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos, Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000, resigning by fax. Extradited from Chile in 2007, he was convicted of human rights violations and corruption, serving sixteen years in prison until his pardon in late 2023.