Kimio Ueno
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
From the finance side, he joined the Bank of Japan in 1941 and moved to Chugai Pharmaceutical in 1953. He became a Director in 1955, Senior Managing Director in 1956 and Executive Vice President in 1958, and had been with the company 13 years when he became President. Shares were concentrated with the founder: in the shareholder register at the end of March 1961, Juzo Ueno was the largest shareholder with 10.7%, and Kimio Ueno ranked seventh with 1.7%.
Selection
In April 1966 he became President, succeeding founder Juzo Ueno. Just before the change, in the fiscal year ended March 1966, poor sales of Gurongsan had driven the company to suspend its dividend and solicit 420 early retirees. Even after the Chugai-kai system was set up in September 1964, excessive competition and consumers holding back on health tonics continued, and sales of pharmacy products declined. The task of ending dependence on a single product appears to have been entrusted to a successor from the finance side.
Initiatives
Research on recombinant DNA drugs, begun in the mid-1970s, had no foreseeable path to profitability, since biotechnology was then still at the basic research stage. In the early 1980s Kimio Ueno, together with Hajime Sano, the executive in charge of R&D, decided to keep investing in this research. "If the management of the time had not decided to continue biotechnology development, today's Chugai would not exist" was the assessment of Osamu Nagayama, who later became President. Net sales grew from ¥20.4 billion in the fiscal year ended March 1971 to ¥100.1 billion in FY ended December 1984.
Career
Career
Bank of Japan
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1941 | Joined |
Chugai Pharmaceutical
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1953 | Joined |
| 1955 | Director |
| 1956 | Senior Managing Officer |
| 1958 | Executive Vice President |
| Apr 1966 | Representative Director, President |
| Mar 1987 | Representative Director, Chairman |
| Mar 1987 | Stepped down as President |
| 2000 | Honorary Chairman |