Toyota Names Watanabe as President
Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest automaker by market value, named Katsuaki Watanabe as its next president and promoted Akio Toyoda, a grandson of the founder, to a post that lines him up to run the company one day.
Watanabe, 62, an executive vice president, oversaw a cost reduction program that put the carmaker on course to a fifth consecutive year of record profit. Toyoda, 48, is in charge of expansion in China, a market that is central to the company’s plan to surpass General Motors Corp. in sales within a decade.
Toyoda, a senior managing director in charge of Asia outside Japan, will be one of eight executive vice presidents, the company said Wednesday. Watanabe, a 40-year Toyota veteran, will succeed Fujio Cho after a shareholder meeting in June, and take charge of operations as Cho oversees strategy as vice chairman.
“Watanabe has run all the important divisions at Toyota and understands the company intimately,” said Koji Endo, director of research at Credit Suisse First Boston in Tokyo. “Toyota is grooming Toyoda as a possible future president, as every president in the past has been promoted after being an executive vice president.”
Chairman Hiroshi Okuda, 72, will remain Toyota’s chairman until his term as Japan Business Federation chairman ends in 2006, Toyota said. Cho, 68, will assume the post of chairman in June next year, the company said at a news briefing.
Toyota’s shares have risen 10% during Cho’s term as president from June 25, 1999.
Detroit-based General Motors shares dropped 41% in the period.
Net income at Toyota more than doubled since Cho took over to 1.2 trillion yen ($11.4 billion) for the year ended March 31, 2004. That’s almost triple the $3.8 billion earned by General Motors in 2003. Toyota’s market capitalization exceeds the combined value of GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler.
The Japanese carmaker’s U.S.-listed shares rose 41 cents to $77.79 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Watanabe joined Toyota in 1964 and has run procurement and business planning, as well as serving as a factory chief at the Motomachi plant near the company’s headquarters. He also runs public relations and the company’s housing business.
