Toyota Motor’s president and chief executive, Akio Toyoda, will step down from his role on April 1, with current Chief Branding Officer Koji Sato set to succeed him, the Japanese automaker announced on Thursday.
Sato, 53, has led the Toyota Lexus division and the GAZOO racing company since 2020.
Toyoda, 66, will transition to the role of chairman of the board, while the current Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada will remain a board member.
Toyoda, who is the grandson of Toyota’s founder, has been CEO since June 2009.
“I thought the best way to further Toyota’s transformation would be for me to become chairman in support of a new president, and this has led to today’s decision. Chairman Uchiyamada has long supported me in all imaginable ways,” Toyoda said during a translated webcast.
“In retrospect, these 13 years have been a period of struggling to survive one day after the next, and that is my honest feeling,” he added.
“The current Toyota structural change has been triggered by my resignation,” Uchiyamada said, noting that he had been contemplating his retirement timing for “some time” to make way for a new generation.
“The foundation for passing the baton to the next generation has been laid,” he said.
“Cars in the future will evolve in the concept of mobility itself. Amid such, I hope to preserve the essential value of the car and propose new forms of mobility,” Sato said, describing this as the mission of the new leadership team.
Toyota’s Tokyo-listed shares ended the trading session 0.63% lower on Thursday ahead of the announcement.
As a pioneer of green automobiles with the introduction of its hybrid Prius in 1997, Toyota has faced increasing criticism regarding the pace at which it has pursued fully electric vehicles, struggling to keep up with new entrants like Tesla.
In December 2021, Toyota announced plans to produce 30 EV models by 2030. A year later, in December 2022, it revealed that a consortium it leads secured funding to develop a hydrogen fuel cell pickup truck in the U.K.
On Thursday, Sato acknowledged the need for Toyota to continue its green initiatives: “Energy security, for example, is a significant challenge that the whole planet needs to face. Additionally, the endeavor towards carbon neutrality will be one example of what we have to work on.”
