Toyota has announced a change at the top of the group. Koji Sato, previously president of the Lexus brand and the motorsport subsidiary Gazoo Racing, will become Toyota’s new president and CEO on 1 April 2023, replacing Akio Toyoda in this role.
The grandson of group founder Kiichiro Toyoda will take over as chairman of the board of directors. What impact the change in leadership will have on Toyota’s current multi-drive strategy remains to be seen. Toyota is currently revising its electric strategy and will present a new three-year plan to its suppliers early this year.
April 1 is the traditional start of the new fiscal year in Japan, which is shifted to the calendar year and thus does not end until March 31 of the following year – so the change in chief will be completed at the new fiscal year. The current chairman of the board of directors, Takeshi Uchiyamada, will then step down as chairman, but will remain a member of the board and deputy director of the company.
Toyota does not give any background information in the short and emphatically factual announcement, which is partly in tabular form. However, the news agency Reuters is clear in its article directly in the first paragraph: “The chief executive of Toyota Motor Corp. will step down as head of the company founded by his grandfather. The Japanese automaker said on Thursday it was handing over the reins of its luxury car division to the head of the company, which is struggling to make the switch to electric vehicles.”
Toyota itself posted a broadcast on its own YouTube channel alongside the announcement, which is more like a talk show in style. In it, the 66-year-old Toyoda said it was now Sato’s job to transform Toyota into a “mobility company”, but without giving details. Incoming CEO Sato also took part in the talk and gave unusual insights into the process for a major Asian corporation. During a trip to Thailand at the end of 2022, Toyoda asked him, as a complete surprise, if he could take over the CEO position – which Sato himself said he initially thought was a joke.
Even for analysts in Japan, the timing of the announcement came as a surprise – as did the nature of the leadership change. Reuters quotes an analyst who suspects that Toyoda, as chairman of the board of directors, will continue to be heavily involved in the operational business – for Sato this will be “a kind of apprenticeship”.
It was not only Toyoda’s unresolved succession that had recently caused disgruntlement among investors. Toyoda’s strategy of focusing for a long time on hybrid cars and fuel cell vehicles instead of battery-electric drives had also come under increasing criticism in view of global market developments.
global.toyota, reuters.com
Keyword: Koji Sato to take over as Toyota’s new CEO