Keiji Yasukawa
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
Born in Fukuoka in 1916, he graduated from the Faculty of Engineering at Tokyo Imperial University in March 1940 and joined Yasukawa Electric Manufacturing in April that year. He became a Director in May 1964, 24 years after joining, then Managing Director in May 1968 and Senior Managing Director in August 1970, and President in 1972. In the board list of the 1969 company directory he appears as Managing Director alongside Chairman Daigoro Yasukawa and President Hiroshi Yasukawa.
Selection
In 1972 he succeeded Hiroshi Yasukawa as President. Hiroshi had been President for 28 years from February 1944 and remained on the board as Chairman after stepping down. When Keiji became a Director in May 1964, Shigeru Sugiyama and Tadashi Tamaki, who joined the board the same month, had both entered the company in 1934 and needed 30 years to reach it. Keiji, who joined in 1940, matched them in 24 years, became Managing Director four years later and Senior Managing Director two years after that. He appears to have climbed the ladder faster than his contemporaries on the board.
Initiatives
Orders from major customer Nippon Steel dwindled, and the company passed its dividend for two straight years through the fiscal year ended March 1978. In 1976 it sought 700 voluntary retirements, about 10% of all employees, and brought in Reijiro Kitani from main bank Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank as Representative Director and Executive Vice President, shifting management from the founding family to a bank-led restructuring. Kitani had been a director of Nippon Kangyo Bank and a managing director of Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank. Research continued through the slump, completing the YASNAC NC unit in 1976 and the MOTOMAN-L10 arc welding robot in 1977.
Career
Career
Yaskawa Electric
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1971 | President |
| 1984 | Stepped down as President |