Handing the presidency to Hisashi Koinuma — the Erikawas’ fifteen-year plan (2025)

The principle of entrusting the company to “the one who earns”

The heart of this handover, one could say, lies in the founding family entrusting management not to its own bloodline but to a homegrown insider who knew the development floor. Yoichi Erikawa’s words — “I’m entrusting it to the one earning the most” — mark a principle at odds with the blood-first succession common to family firms. Yet that the principle was put into practice only after a long, fifteen-year run-up tells at the same time that a merit-based succession cannot be made overnight. The way trust grew out of the work Koinuma showed on the development floor of Kessen suggests a company that has valued proof on the ground over schooling or title.

At the same time, separating operating authority over the core business and governance of the asset management in one stroke was an organizational redesign beyond a mere generational change. Handing the core business to Koinuma, who knows the feel of game development, and moving the investment-adept Keiko Erikawa to a dedicated subsidiary — that division of roles has the logic of concentrating resources where each is strongest. Yet how far the “Erikawa-style management” the founding couple carried in tandem can be handed down in this split form — a president risen from development and a subsidiary devoted to investment — is something the results to come will show.