A little more than two years after Koji Sato took the reins from Akio Toyoda, the world’s largest automaker has a new top executive. Kenta Kon, 57, will now lead Toyota, having already served as its Chief Financial Officer since 2020.
Unlike Sato and Toyoda, Kon is less a car guy and more a finance guy, though he’s been at Toyota since 1991 and worked as Toyoda’s secretary for eight years. During Kon’s tenure as CFO, the automaker began pushing services and subscriptions alongside vehicles. It’s this initiative that perhaps made Kon an attractive option to the board, as profitability has become a major concern, with Chinese competitors driving prices down and U.S. tariffs upending the global landscape.
“I’m very strict when it comes to money and numbers,” he said to reporters on Friday morning, per Bloomberg. OK, not terribly exciting, but maybe he has a racing driver alter ego we don’t know about yet.
As for Sato, he will shift to a capacity similar to Toyoda’s as vice chairman. But he will also move into a new role the automaker has just created, titled Chief Industry Officer. Toyota’s press release announcing the management shakeup stressed “a growing need to accelerate practical initiatives for industry collaboration to strengthen international competitiveness” as well as a desire to “expand partnerships beyond the industry.”
Considering Sato was also recently appointed chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, his focus going forward seems pretty clear: concentrating on manufacturing efficiency and joint ventures to keep the country’s automotive sector—most of all Toyota—poised for success.
This all comes after Toyota sold 3% more vehicles globally than in the previous quarter, yet posted an operating profit that’s 1.9% lower, year-on-year. If you guessed that tariffs might have something to do with that, Toyota agrees. The company projects that its operating profit will land at $23.3 billion upon the conclusion of its fiscal year on March 31, which would represent a 21% drop from the year prior. Yeah, it’s easy to see why they want the finance guy in charge. Kon starts his new job on April 1.
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