Daihatsu parent Toyota has chosen Toyota executive Masahiro Inoue to replace Soichiro Okudaira as president of its safety scandal hit Daihatsu unit.
Inoue, the CEO of Toyota Latin America, will replace Soichiro Okudaira effective March 1, the companies said in a joint statement.
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The companies said that under the new structure, ‘we will thoroughly implement measures to prevent recurrence and work toward Daihatsu’s future revitalization’.
Daihatsu Chairman Sunao Matsubayashi will step down, and his position left vacant. More changes to Daihatsu’s management structure are expected over the next few months.
Toyota president Koji Sato apologized again to customers for the testing scandal, which disrupted the certification and output of Toyota models as well as Daihatsu models.
Sato said that last week, Daihatsu President Okudaira reported to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on ‘measures to prevent recurrence and promised to demonstrate through actions the company’s determination to never allow irregularities to occur again’.
President-to-be Inoue has experience working on structural reform of Toyota’s Latin American business, including a renewed regional management system involving Brazil and Argentina.
Sato said that despite the many difficult decisions he has had to make, ‘he is a leader who has moved reforms forward by implementing thorough dialogue with frontline members’.
Utilizing this experience, he will lead the revitalization of Daihatsu as the person responsible for ‘on-site management’.
Daihatsu Executive Vice President Hoshika will continue to be in charge of building a system for regulation-related and certification-related operations that do not cause certification irregularities as the chief officer of Daihatsu’s Quality Management Group.
Also, Keiko Yanagi of Toyota’s Customer First Promotion Group, who has extensive experience in certification operations, will be newly appointed as a director.
Toyota has announced that it will resume production of Daihatsu certification hit models later this month.
