Nobuyuki Idei
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He joined Sony in April 1960 and worked in Europe and in the home video business. He became Managing Director in June 1994 and President in April 1995. Unlike Masaru Ibuka and Kazuo Iwama, engineers who created products, or Norio Ohga, who came from music, he moved between overseas markets and business planning, making him the first president in a line whose strength was business vision rather than making things.
Selection
In April 1995 he succeeded Norio Ohga as President. In the fiscal year ended March 1995, the year before he took office, Sony sank to a consolidated net loss of ¥293.3 billion on a goodwill write-down in the film business stemming from the Columbia Pictures acquisition. Promoted from Managing Director, he appears to have been entrusted, as a man from business planning, with fixing an earnings structure skewed toward hardware sales and cleaning up after the Hollywood investment.
Initiatives
In April 1999 he consolidated and reorganized the in-house companies into a network company system, and in January 2000 made three listed subsidiaries wholly owned through share exchanges. PlayStation 2, announced in 1999, played DVD-Video and went on sale at ¥39,800, growing games into a second pillar. In April 2001 Sony signed a memorandum with Ericsson to combine their mobile phone businesses, and the 50-50 joint venture began operations that October. When Apple took hold of music distribution with the iPod and iTunes in that same year, 2001, Sony fell behind.
Career
Career
Sony
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Apr 1960 | Joined |
| Jun 1994 | Managing Director |
| Apr 1995 | President |
| Jun 2000 | Chairman and CEO |
| Jun 2000 | Stepped down as President |