Toyota Overhauls Executive Ranks in Massive “Now or Never” Reorg: Mark Templin leaving Lexus?

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https://blog.caranddriver.com/toyota-overhauls-executive-ranks-in-massive-now-or-never-reorg/
Spring cleaning is coming early at Toyota, particularly among executives who may have felt a little too comfortable at the top. CEO Akio Toyoda is overhauling almost every division and reshuffling job responsibilities in the biggest corporate shakeup since the company’s unintended-acceleration debacle.

Toyota is preparing for “profound transformation” as automated driving, ride sharing, electrification, and a focus on software upset the traditional ways in which it builds and sells cars. Realizing it could become a complacent, bloated conglomerate like pre-bankruptcy General Motors, CEO Toyoda (pictured above on a Lexus yacht) is greasing the cogs in his giant corporation and throwing some out entirely.

“Surrounded by changes of unprecedented speed and scale, [Toyota] is aware it faces a ‘now or never’ situation in which not a moment can be spared,” Toyoda said in a lengthy statement. In total worldwide, 56 executives will be promoted to new roles, 121 will be transferred to other divisions, and 17 will be dismissed as of January 1. Among those leaving are Mark Templin, the U.S. vice president and general manager for Lexus who has championed the F-brand performance cars, and Tokuo Fukuichi, formerly Toyota’s chief designer and Lexus president, who just months ago was promoted to the luxury brand’s top marketing role. While the company announced in March that it would reduce its board of directors from 11 to nine and usher out other executives, Toyota moved its deadline up three months, from April to January.

CEO Toyoda, despite leading the world’s largest automaker (a title traded with Renault-Nissan and Volkswagen) to record sales, said the industry’s future is about “surviving or dying” rather than outright dominance. Toyoda’s changes, he said, are intended to make the company leaner and quicker to respond to new ideas and to place more people in charge who are proven experts rather than those with seniority.

Toyoda said he also wants to promote more non-Japanese executives. The Japanese corporate culture—as evidenced during Toyota’s 2009 sticky throttle/floor-mat issue and Takata’s ongoing airbag crisis—has been difficult for foreigners, and Americans in particular, to crack.

But the rules of respecting elders and never questioning senior management have already begun to wear thin. In 2011, toward the end of massive global recalls, the company allowed its regional offices to make more higher-level decisions. After more reorganizations in 2013 and 2016, CEO Toyoda is promising more autonomy and localized decision making. The automaker will scrap seven divisions, lowering the total to 242. A new Toyota Production System division will assist other departments with the company’s revered quality and productivity standards, including those that have nothing to do with manufacturing. Toyoda also stressed “quick judgment, quick decisions, and quick action” to foster on-the-job learning.

Change at Toyota is already evident in the showrooms, where we’ve recently seen a Camry that doesn’t bore us to death, an upcoming sports car with BMW, the death of Scion, and a totally reinvigorated Lexus. But even the company that practically invented the hybrid market and sells the most popular family sedan in America can’t afford to rest on its name.
 

Gecko

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krew

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As a point of interest, Mark Templin had switched over to Toyota USA over a year ago.

Fukuichi is an interesting change -- the whole design focus of the Lexus brand was largely under his leadership. At the same time, Yoshihiro Sawa has been in charge of Lexus International for a few months now.
 

Joaquin Ruhi

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I, too, was shocked when I read that Mark Templin was no longer a managing officer at Toyota. After checking with a friend and Toyota insider, however, I was relieved to hear that Templin retains his current position as deputy chief officer for the Sales Financial Business Group of Toyota USA Financial Services.

Other noteworthy bits from this latest round of corporate musical chairs:

- Hiroyuki Koba, chief engineer for Lexus HS and Toyota C-HR and currently with Gazoo Racing's GR Development Management Division will transfer to Toyota MotorSport GmbH in Germany.

- Chika Kako, chief engineer for the first and second Lexus CT facelifts has been named an executive vice president for Lexus International and a managing officer for Toyota. This makes her the company's highest-ranked female official.

For the full list of new Toyota and Lexus personnel moves:
http://newsroom.toyota.co.jp/en/detail/19944135/
 
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I, too, was shocked when I read that Mark Templin was no longer a managing officer at Toyota. After checking with a friend and Toyota insider, however, I was relieved to hear that Templin retains his current position as deputy chief officer for the Sales Financial Business Group of Toyota USA Financial Services.

Other noteworthy bits from this latest round of corporate musical chairs:

- Hiroyuki Koba, chief engineer for Lexus HS and Toyota C-HR and currently with Gazoo Racing's GR Development Management Division will transfer to Toyota MotorSport GmbH in Germany.

- Chika Kako, chief engineer for the first and second Lexus CT facelifts has been named an executive vice president for Lexus International and a managing officer for Toyota. This makes her the company's highest-ranked female official.

For the full list of new Toyota and Lexus personnel moves:
http://newsroom.toyota.co.jp/en/detail/19944135/
I was going to link that too, forgot but here's proof from March 2016:

http://www.autonews.com/article/20160302/OEM01/160309959/toyota-revises-structure-to-address-product-segments-r&d
It also keeps Lexus International as a separate entity. Tokuo Fukuichi, 64, will continue as its president.

Among other changes, Steve St. Angelo, 60, was promoted to senior managing officer at the parent company, keeping his role as CEO of the carmaker’s Latin America and Caribbean region.

Mark Templin, currently executive vice president of Lexus International, will become deputy chief officer for the Sales Financial Business Group and managing officer for Toyota Financial Services Co. Yoshihiro Sawa, now chief officer for global design planning, will slide over as a new executive vice president at the Toyota luxury car division.

and here:
https://www.sc.toyotafinancial.com/web/tfs/pub/contents/Fiscal_2016_Form_10K.pdf
 

isanatori

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It seems that Google, Apple, Samsung, LG and rising Chinese smartphone rivals are going to devour the auto industry. Battery technology and IoT are their home business turf.

Now it makes sense to me, why Toyota denies incorporating Carplay /Android auto into their cars.

Toyota has been developing their own rivalry SmartLink product, instead. You might want to check the link below. It's 50 minutes long.

 
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It seems that Google, Apple, Samsung, LG and rising Chinese smartphone rivals are going to devour the auto industry. Battery technology and IoT are their home business turf.

Now it makes sense to me, why Toyota denies incorporating Carplay /Android auto into their cars.

Toyota has been developing their own rivalry SmartLink product, instead. You might want to check the link below. It's 50 minutes long.

Entune is hardly impressing a lot of Toyota owners...count myself as one who wishes they would reconsider.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20170227/OEM06/302279971/can-toyota-stave-off-carplay-android-auto?
 

isanatori

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Entune is hardly impressing a lot of Toyota owners...count myself as one who wishes they would reconsider.

It sounds quite reasonable to me. Toyota should had entered in Google /Apple fields when those begun establishing their businesses. Toyota did not do that and it was a big mistake. President Akio Toyoda words "It is now or never" sound quite alarming. It seems that Toyota is playing catch up to those Giants and it is serious. The company is battling for its existence. It is a War and consequently, there gonna be casualties, especially for the side, who doesn't have the upper hand.
 
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It sounds quite reasonable to me. Toyota should had entered in Google /Apple fields when those begun establishing their businesses. Toyota did not do that and it was a big mistake. President Akio Toyoda words "It is now or never" sound quite alarming. It seems that Toyota is playing catch up to those Giants and it is serious. The company is battling for its existence. It is a War and consequently, there gonna be casualties, especially for the side, who doesn't have the upper hand.
If there's one thing that many new 2018 Camry owners hate, is the Entune 3.0/AGL/Smartlink whatever they call their infotainment crap; even Ford just uses ACP/AA and it makes their Sync3 desirable, rather than the crap they had earlier.
 

ssun30

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The Entune/Smartlink non-sense needs to stop immediately. It's delusional to think they can fight Google/Apple by themselves. Look at how well Nokia did with Belle/MeeGo and Sony Ericsson did with UIQ: they are DEAD.