Yoshifumi Tsuji
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
A career man from production, he joined Nissan Motor in 1954, became General Manager of Engineering Department 1 at the Yokohama plant in 1978 and manager of the Tochigi plant in 1984. He became a Director in 1985, Managing Director in 1987, Senior Managing Director in 1989 and Executive Vice President in 1990, and President in June 1992. With average utilization at domestic plants below 80%, the role of deciding the deployment of production facilities fell to an executive who had worked the plant floor.
Selection
In June 1992 he succeeded Yutaka Kume as President. In the fiscal year ended March 1992, the year before, consolidated net sales were ¥6,417.9 billion and net income ¥101.2 billion, but in FY ended March 1993, his first year, the company fell into an ordinary loss. Sluggish domestic sales after the bubble burst were compounded by a yen approaching ¥80 to the dollar, squeezing export profitability. Each one-yen rise in the yen wiped out about ¥5 billion in profit, and Tsuji's verdict on his own company was that it was lax in following through.
Initiatives
In February 1993 he announced the end of vehicle production at the Zama plant, moving the Sunny to Kyushu and the Presea to Murayama and cutting domestic annual capacity from 2.7 million to around 2.3 million units. It was the first closure of an assembly plant in the Japanese auto industry. He also pruned models and parts, cutting the steering wheel variants for the Laurel from 86 to 10, but held to the full-line maker structure, and demands for cost reduction were directed at keiretsu parts suppliers. Vehicle production at Zama ended in March 1995, and the company posted a record ordinary loss for that fiscal year as well.
Career
Career
Nissan Motor
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1954 | Joined |
| 1978 | General Manager, First Engineering Works Department, Yokohama Plant |
| 1984 | General Manager, Tochigi Plant |
| 1985 | Director |
| 1987 | Managing Director |
| 1989 | Senior Managing Director |
| 1990 | Executive Vice President |
| Jun 1992 | President |
| Jun 1996 | Stepped down as President |
| Jun 1996 | Stepped down as President |