Taizo Ishida
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He joined Hattori Shoten in 1915 and after the war served as President of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. His schooling ended at Shiga Prefectural First Middle School (now Shiga Prefectural Hikone Higashi High School), and he was a manager who came up through trading and money matters rather than engineering. He became President of Toyota Motor Co. while remaining President of the loom works, sent in from a position representing the founding family's capital. Yet the loom works held only 4.9% of the shares as of November 1960, and the top holders were trust banks and city banks.
Selection
Under the 1949 Dodge Line the company's cash flow collapsed, and Kiichiro Toyoda resigned as President in June 1950, taking responsibility for the voluntary retirement of 1,600 employees. Taizo Ishida of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works was named his successor and took office in July while remaining President of the loom works. It was an appointment that placed at the head of a company barely kept alive by a bank syndicate's joint loans not a member of the founding family but the head of a parent company close to the providers of funds.
Initiatives
He inherited the two-company structure with Toyota Motor Sales, split off in April 1950 just before he took office, and entrenched a division of labor in which the manufacturing side handled cost and quality and the sales side handled the dealer network. In May 1951 he started the creative idea suggestion system, using shop-floor improvements to make up for scarce capital investment. Toyota entered the passenger car market with the first Crown in 1955 and set up Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. in October 1957. Against Managing Director Eiji Toyoda's proposal for 10,000 units a month, he decided to build the Motomachi plant at 5,000 units a month.
Career
Career
Hattori Shoten
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1915 | Joined |
Toyoda Automatic Loom Works
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1948 | President |
Toyota Motor Co.
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Jul 1950 | President |
| Aug 1961 | Chairman |
| Aug 1961 | Stepped down as President |