Toyota Appoints New CFO In Executive Shake-Up

Kenta Kon is set to be announced as the new CFO of Toyota as of this week, as the firm gears towards eliminating all executive vice president (EVP) roles and streamline its management structure. It is hoped that these changes would improve production systems and reduce costs on all sides.

Answering to CEO Akio Toyoda, who has been at the helm since 2009, this move makes Kon the firm’s no.2 executive. The current CFO Koji Kobayashi is set to retain his secondary role as chief risk officer.

According to reports, six of the firm’s EVP roles, which have been in place since 1982, will be scrapped, giving room for a new, more streamline executive management system. Some of these roles will now become COO roles and the individuals who occupy them will focus on managing more niche operations of the firm, while others will simply continue working in the same role, only without the EVP title.

The CEO, announcing this decision, said “I have judged that it is necessary for me to directly communicate with the leaders of the next generation and to increase the amount of time for sharing our concerns, by further reducing the number of layers of management.”

The appointment of Kon as CFO is just another of Toyota’s latest steps towards simplifying the way the firm runs internally, in order to improve competitive edge, and being one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers, to keep up with the latest technology, such as electric vehicles, self-driving cars and more.