Kaname Kishi
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He moved from Sumitomo Bank to Sumitomo Electric Wire & Cable Works in 1937 and, after serving as head of general affairs and of accounting, became a Director and Managing Director. An administrator who came up through accounting and general affairs rather than engineering, he rose to President in 1947. As of September 1955 the largest shareholder was I.S.E., followed by Sumitomo Trust and Banking, Sumitomo Bank and Sumitomo Life, with no individual shareholder in the top ten. A professional manager without his own capital appears to have been running a company whose shares were split among Sumitomo financial institutions.
Selection
He became President in 1947. The company, which had swelled to capital of ¥120 million and about 15,000 employees just before the war ended, had seen its Osaka and Nagoya works burned in air raids. With the Sumitomo head office dissolved in the zaibatsu breakup, it had to rebuild its sales network, and had just opened a Tokyo branch and Nagoya and Fukuoka offices in 1946. An administrator versed in accounting and general affairs appears to have been assigned the task of converting a company swollen by military demand back to civilian production.
Initiatives
In 1948 the company began selling sintered products, and that same year cable output returned to prewar levels. In 1949 it listed its shares on the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya stock exchanges. Also in 1949 it entered overhead transmission line construction and the automotive wiring harness business. Two new businesses, building power grids and automotive wiring bundles, started in the same year and became the gateway to later core businesses.
Career
Career
Sumitomo Electric Industries
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1937 | Joined |
| 1947 | President |
| Nov 1956 | Chairman |
| Nov 1956 | Stepped down as President |
| Jun 1962 | Senior Advisor |