Akira Murata
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
His family made ceramic insulators, and his starting point was bringing knowledge from ceramic-making into electronic components. He was born in Kyoto in 1921 and left Kyoto First Commercial School in 1936. In October 1944 he leased the site of a former dye works in Kyoto City and started Murata Manufacturing as a sole proprietorship. Becoming a cooperating factory for Mitsubishi Electric's Itami Works, he began making titanium oxide ceramic capacitors. In December 1950 he reorganized it as a joint-stock company with capital of ¥1 million and became Representative Director and President.
Selection
His appointment came with the December 1950 reorganization in which the founder moved the business from sole proprietorship to a corporation. The factory had one male craftsman and about ten women, and impurities in purchased raw materials had caused a flood of defects, forcing a production halt of nearly four months. He remained President after the company listed on the Second Section of the Osaka Securities Exchange in March 1963, and as of 1977 the three Senior Managing Directors serving as representative directors had all joined between 1951 and 1957. The incorporation appears to have come before anyone other than the founder had grown within the company to whom management could be entrusted.
Initiatives
He decided that the company would control everything from raw material blending to forming, firing and processing, develop its production machinery in-house, and never convert into a finished-goods maker. Overseas, it expanded from exports to the U.S. in 1961 to a U.S. sales company in May 1965, and in September 1980 acquired two-thirds of Canada's Erie Technological Products (ETP), taking on factories in the U.S., Canada, West Germany and Mexico and sales companies in France and Italy. Non-consolidated net sales grew from ¥4.8 billion in the fiscal year ended March 1967 to ¥157.3 billion in FY ended March 1985.
Career
Career
Murata Manufacturing
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Oct 1944 | Founded Management Murata Manufacturing |
| Dec 1950 | Representative Director, President |