Shinzo Fukuhara was the third son of Shiseido's founder Arinobu Fukuhara, and heir to the company. He became the company's first president when it went public in 1927. Shinzo was born in 1883 in Tokyo's Ginza district. As a boy, he was instructed by some of the foremost artists of the time in Japanese-style painting, water coloring, oil painting and photography. Shinzo wished to become an artist himself, but with his oldest brother's illness and the untimely death of his other brother, he inherited the family business and went to what is now called Chiba University to study pharmacology.

Upon earning his pharmacist certification, Shinzo followed his father's recommendation and went to study in the United States, where he entered the Pharmacology Department at Columbia University in 1908 at the age of 25. After graduation he worked at a drug store in the suburbs of New York and at a pharmaceutical maker's cosmetics factory for two years. Shinzo received praise for his hard work as well as the formulas for various cosmetics from the maker's president as a gift. These would later become very useful for product development.

After his time in the United States, Shinzo went to Europe and mingled with young Japanese artists staying in Paris. He ordered a specially made camera from Marion, a company in London, and took his first steps toward becoming a photographer.
On Shinzo's return to Japan in 1915, he succeeded his father as head of the Shiseido Pharmacy and shifted the focus of the company from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics. Shinzo left all managerial responsibilities to his friend from his time in New York, Noboru Matsumoto, while he himself took charge of product development and advertising. In 1916 he gathered top contemporary designers and established the Design Department , and endeavored to establish a corporate identity and a Shiseido design based on art nouveau while putting the knowledge and experience he obtained overseas to use in successively providing the world with new, high-quality cosmetics. Shinzo opened the Shiseido Gallery in 1919 and deepened his interaction with artists. He also continued with photography, established Shashin Geijitsu-sha (Photographic Art Company) in 1921, published Paris et la Seine, a collection of photos, the following year, and established a firm foothold for himself in the Japanese photographic art world.

Shinzo Fukuhara made use of his artistic knowledge and built the foundation for the Shiseido of today. He was fond of saying, “Let the product speak for itself” and “Richness in all.” These words are still used today in developing products at Shiseido.