• Automotive News, Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11 AM

Akio Toyoda, 52, whose grandfather Kiichiro founded Toyota Motor Corp. in 1937, will succeed current President Katsuaki Watanabe in June, when his appointment is expected to be approved by the company's board. Toyoda has a reputation for challenging old-guard conservatism, Hans Greimel reports.

Toyoda is deeply grounded in U.S. business practices, customs, and finances. After graduating in 1983 from Babson College in Massachusetts, a school that specializes in educating the children of business leaders, he worked at a New York investment bank. He has headed Toyota's China and Asian operations and served as a vp at its General Motors joint venture in California. He is expected to inject an international mindset into the company, whose overseas operations now account for most of its sales.

"Toyota is the strongest manufacturer in the world, but it is strategically weak because it has not embedded itself in the richest market in the world, the U.S.," says Michael Wynn-Williams, an analyst at IHS Global Insight. He sees more production shifting overseas "as quickly as possible."

Read the whole story at Automotive News »