Tadashi Sekizawa
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He became President of Fujitsu in June 1990. An article in April 1991 introduced him as an executive leading 50,000 people with a hands-on, front-line motto. At the time the computer division earned over 70% of Fujitsu's sales, and its core business was general-purpose mainframes. He was a President who rose from within, with no shareholding behind him.
Selection
As downsizing advanced, the position of mainframes was wavering, symbolized by IBM's fall into the red. For Fujitsu, which had grown around general-purpose computers, the early 1990s marked a turning point for that strategy. He took over the presidency from Takuma Yamamoto in June 1990, and it was said that whether the restructuring of this period succeeded depended on how quickly the company could escape its hardware-centered culture before mainframe demand disappeared.
Initiatives
In October 1990 he acquired an 80% stake in ICL of the UK, making it a group company in November. After the acquisition ICL gradually withdrew from mainframe manufacturing and in January 1997 sold its manufacturing arm, D2D. In 1993 he declared a break with hardware self-sufficiency, together with cost reduction from the design stage. In September 1997 he bought all the shares of Amdahl of the US, in which Fujitsu held 42%, for ¥110.6 billion, and built a systems engineering force of 36,000 people: 20,000 in Japan, 10,000 in Europe and 6,000 in North America.
Career
Career
Fujitsu
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Apr 1954 | Joined Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing |
| Jun 1984 | Director |
| Jun 1986 | Managing Officer |
| Jun 1988 | Senior Managing Officer and General Manager, Sales Promotion Department |
| Jun 1990 | President |
| Jun 1998 | Chairman |
| Jun 1998 | Stepped down as President |