Founder Profile
William Gorham
Last reviewed: October 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Who is William Gorham?
William Gorham is a founder of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., which was founded in 1933 with Yoshisuke Aikawa, Masujiro Hashimoto and Rokuro Aoyama.
- Company founded
- Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
- Founded
- 1933
- Co-founders
- Yoshisuke Aikawa, Masujiro Hashimoto and Rokuro Aoyama
Background
American automotive engineer.
Founding Story
William Gorham was an American engineer who moved to Japan and played an absolutely vital role in the founding of Nissan. He brought crucial, highly advanced American mass-production machinery and technical expertise to Aikawa's factories, single-handedly advancing the Japanese automotive industry by decades prior to WWII.
William Gorham was born in 1888 in San Francisco. Education: Heald College.
William Reagan Gorham was born on January 4, 1888 and died on October 24, 1949. An American-born engineer, he emigrated to Japan and worked with several of the companies that Yoshisuke Aikawa later merged into Nissan.