Toyota Names Next President

Toyota, the world's No.2 auto maker, has named an executive who is now primarily in charge of purchasing as its next president and has promoted a Toyoda family scion as his possible successor.

Katsuaki Watanabe, one of Toyota's six vice presidents, will replace Fujio Cho in June pending a general shareholders meeting. Cho, 67, will be vice chairman before succeeding Chairman Hiroshi Okuda, 72, when he vacates the post in a year.

Watanabe takes over at a time when the world's most profitable auto maker is aiming to boost global sales to 8.5 million units in 2006 - about 1 million more than last year - bringing it neck-and-neck with General Motors as the world's biggest seller of cars.

Toyota is already the biggest carmaker by market value. With a market capitalisation of $140 billion (75 billion pounds), it is nearly three times the size of second-ranked Honda Motor Co.

"I have the impression that Toyota became a big company in a very short time," Watanabe, who will be the third successive president to hail from outside the Toyoda clan, told a news conference. "Are we becoming too complacent? This is something I fear and feel we need to address."

The amateur musician, who turns 63 on Sunday, has spent his entire career at Toyota, having joined the company in 1964, and became one of its youngest board members in 1992. At the time, he was seen as a future candidate for the top job.

Unlike Cho, Watanabe has never held an overseas post, but has broad experience in production -- as supervisor of the Motomachi plant, one of Toyota's oldest and its biggest in Japan -- and in procurement and corporate planning.

As head of purchasing, Watanabe is credited with steering Toyota to cost cuts of 1 trillion yen - roughly equivalent to Toyota's annual net profit - over three years.

His current responsibilities also include overseeing new business development, information technology, housing, government and public affairs.

In a rejuvenation of top management, Toyota will retire all five of its other vice presidents, promoting eight senior managing directors to the vice presidency level. That would push the vice presidents' average age down by 8 years to 58.