Toyota Motor likely to pick founder family man Akio Toyoda as chief+

NAGOYA, Dec. 23 Kyodo - Toyota Motor Corp., the nation's top automaker, which just on Monday announced its worst earnings outlook ever, is expected to appoint Executive Vice President Akio Toyoda as president when Katsuaki Watanabe steps down in the spring, sources familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

Akio, 52, is the great-grandson of the late Sakichi Toyoda, who founded the
Toyota Motor group and also the eldest son of Toyota Motor honorary chairman
Shoichiro Toyoda, 83.
If the appointment is finalized, he will be the first Toyota Motor president
from the founding family since 1995 when Tatsuro Toyoda retired from the post
and the sixth founding family member to hold the post. Tatsuro, 79, is
currently an adviser to the automaker.
The expected appointment is widely seen as aimed at weathering what Watanabe
has called ''an unprecedented emergency situation'' by relying on the prowess
of the founding family that built up the Toyota corporate group, the sources
said.
Toyota Motor said Monday it expects its first-ever group operating loss of 150
billion yen in fiscal 2008, a drastic turnaround from a projection of 600
billion yen in profit, as shrinking global auto sales and the yen's further
appreciation have dramatically changed its fortunes.
Akio, as executive vice president, is currently supervising marketing
operations both overseas and domestic, having served as head of the China
business division and the information business division. He has long been
tipped as a future president.
Watanabe has been leading Toyota Motor as president since June 2005. Under him,
Toyota had reported record high profits each year but since the beginning of
this year, the automaker has seen global sales of new cars plunge particularly
in the United States, forcing it to revise its earnings projections twice in
the short span of two months.
==Kyodo
2008-12-23 21:28:55