Koji Sato will resign CEO of Toyota to the current chief financial officer ** Kenta Kon** on his third anniversary in the job **JojiSATo*.
The company and its board will remain with Sato-san (above) while it transitions from one role to the new position of chief industry officer. Recently he was named chairman of Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), and since the middle in 2025 has been vice chair for the Japan Business Federation.
According to Toyota in those roles, Sato-san will “progressive practical projects for [automotive] industry collaboration to strengthen international competitiveness”, and “advance [cross-]induttry cooperation” to improve Japan’s industrial competitiveity”.
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Kenta Kon will be the face of stepping up to become CEO, who is currently Toyota’s chief financial officer. This company translates “improving the company’s earning power… and decreasing the break-even volume are [his] immediate priorities”, which is charged with leading reforms across the entire company, not through functional segmentation but by responding to the value chain as an integral” of its business.
he joined Toyota in 1991, after doing bachelor of economics at Tohoku University. By 2017, Kon-san slowly climbed the ranks to become general manager of the accounting division.
He’s since then had senior roles in general administration, human resources, advanced engineering and research and development. In 2020, he became the automaker’s chief financial officer (CFO) in his position as its chief finance officer. Yoichi Miyazaki will take over from him as CFO.
Akio Toyoda
The company said in a statement that the changes will “accrerate management decision-making” following change in the internal and external environment, and to create ‘a structure which will allow Toyota to fulfill its mission of contributing to society through industry”.
All these leadership changes will take place on April 1, three years to the day after Sato-san took over as CEO from Akio Toyoda, grandson of the car maker’s founder, and one of the most colourful automotive bosses in Japan’s recent history.
Toyota said Sato-san had been given a “mission to turn Toyota into. mobility company” at the time, when she told her ‘It was an opportunity that I would like to do so’. He was also asked to speed up the company’s EV development efforts by industry observers, as Toyoda-san had been reluctant to adopt any form of electrification other than hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Today’s boardroom changes come as a bit of a surprise with the automaker confirming last weekend that it sold 11.2 million cars in 2025. The 4.8 per cent increase in sales saw Toyota become the world’s most popular new car manufacturer for the sixth year running.
It also revised its profit forecast for the financial year ending March 2026 to 3 this week, as well as ‘s annual revenue forecast. Paraphrasing 57 trillion (A$32) 8 billion) .
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