Takeshi Hijikata
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He graduated from the Faculty of Economics at Tokyo Imperial University in 1941 and joined Sumitomo Chemical that same year. His career at the company spanned 36 years by the time he became President. He became a Director in February 1971, 30 years after joining, then Managing Director in August 1973 and Executive Vice President in March 1977. Whereas his two predecessors had both come through the Sumitomo head-office organization, he was the first President to have joined the company directly out of university. He was born in Gifu Prefecture in 1915.
Selection
On April 28, 1977 he became President, succeeding Norishige Hasegawa. He had been made Executive Vice President only the month before, in March, so he served just one month in that post before the promotion. The post-oil-crisis recession was deep: the ethylene industry cut output by 50% from January to March 1975, and the company history records that the large fertilizer, industrial chemicals, synthetic resins and light metals divisions all deteriorated together, with only agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals consistently profitable. The shift from an emphasis on scale to an emphasis on profitability began with this change of leadership.
Initiatives
Aluminum smelting, which consumes huge amounts of electricity, became unviable after the two oil crises, and the company withdrew from smelting in October 1981. In domestic petrochemicals, it shut down ethylene production in Ehime in January 1983 and consolidated it in Chiba. Meanwhile, Asahan Aluminium, a Japan-Indonesia economic cooperation project, started up in February 1982, and in March 1984 the Singapore petrochemical complex, with 300,000 tons a year of capacity, began operating as a Japan-Singapore economic cooperation project. In February 1984 the company established Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals as a joint venture with Inabata & Co., and transferred its pharmaceutical business to it in October of that year. Net sales went from ¥556.1 billion in the fiscal year ended December 1976 to ¥703.8 billion in the fiscal year ended December 1984, and net income from ¥3.5 billion to ¥14.2 billion.
Career
Career
Sumitomo Chemical
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1941 | Joined |
| Feb 1971 | Director |
| Aug 1973 | Managing Director |
| Mar 1977 | Executive Vice President |
| Apr 1977 | President |
| Mar 1985 | Stepped down as President |
Seitetsu Kagaku Kogyo
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Jun 1979 | Director |
References 3
References (Japanese primary sources)
- 日本企業要覧 1981年版
- 日本企業要覧 1977年版
- 『住友化学工業株式会社史』（住友化学工業, 1981年）