Born in 1837 into a village-headman family in Shibata, Kanbara District, Echigo Province. At eighteen he went to Edo to apprentice in a dry-goods store, later set up his own gun dealership in Ginza, and made his fortune in the boom of the Boshin War. In 1873 he founded Okura-gumi Shokai and built the foundation of the Okura zaibatsu through diversified operations in civil engineering, trade, mining, and steel. As a purveyor to the state, he won the transport contracts for the Taiwan Expedition, the Sino-Japanese War, and the Russo-Japanese War and amassed immense wealth. Devoted to education and culture, in 1898 he founded the Okura Commercial School — today's Tokyo University of Economics — for business education. In 1917 he opened Japan's first private art museum, the Okura Shukokan in Akasaka, putting his collected masterpieces of East Asian art on public view. He was involved in building the Imperial Hotel, the Rokumeikan, and the Imperial Theatre; his grandson Okura Kishichiro founded the Hotel Okura. He died in 1928 at the age of 91.

A self-made hero who rose from nothing though born in a village-headman's house. Rich in commercial acumen and nerve, he had also an overbearing side as a wartime military contractor that had him called a 'merchant of death.' At the same time his passion for art and education was genuine, and he showed a largeness of spirit in opening his collected masterpieces to the public rather than hoarding them. Fond of luxury, he lived splendidly at the Imperial Hotel and his own residences, and yet remained active in business until the age of ninety, directing his enterprises to the end.

The Okura zaibatsu was dismantled after the war by GHQ, but Taisei Construction, Okura Shuzo, the Hotel Okura, and the Imperial Hotel remain today among Japan's representative enterprises. Tokyo University of Economics, as one of the oldest commercial-education institutions in Japan, has produced many business executives and economists. The Okura Shukokan has for more than a century since its opening been one of the leading private art museums in Japan, holding many National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties and continuing to contribute to the nation's culture.