Toshio Doko
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He was born on September 15, 1896, in Ono Village, Mitsu District, Okayama Prefecture (now Okayama City). He spent three years at Tokyo Higher Technical School (known as Kuramae, now Tokyo Institute of Technology), and after serving as an executive of Ishikawajima Shibaura Turbine, became president of Ishikawajima Heavy Industries and then Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries. He held the presidency at Ishikawajima-Harima for 14 and a half years, and after merging with Nagoya Shipbuilding and Nagoya Heavy Industries in May 1964, handed the post to Renzo Taguchi that November. Ishikawajima and Toshiba had long cooperated, and Doko had for many years also been a non-executive officer of Toshiba.
Selection
In May 1965 he became president at the earnest request of Taizo Ishizaka, chairman of Tokyo Shibaura Electric. His charge was to rebuild Toshiba, which had been cutting its dividend year after year; net income in the fiscal year ended March 1965, the year before he took office, was ¥7.4 billion, less than half the ¥19.4 billion of FY ended March 1963. The appointment had reached the newspapers before talks between his predecessor Fumio Iwashita and Ishizaka were settled, giving Doko only a week from the formal request to the informal decision. Toshiba was about three times Ishikawajima's size in both capital and employees.
Initiatives
Immediately after taking office he fully delegated authority to each division, reworking how the organization was run. He introduced self-assessment and internal job posting systems and moved more than 1,600 people in four years. He gathered 1,800 department and section managers to present a long-term management plan, achieved its sales target two years early in 1969, and shared his thinking monthly in the company newsletter as "Excerpts of Top Management Guidance." Net sales grew from ¥221.3 billion in the fiscal year ended March 1966 to ¥600.1 billion in FY ended March 1971. He stepped down as president in August 1972.
Career
Career
Toshiba
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| May 1965 | President |
| Aug 1972 | Stepped down as President |