Shuntaro Furukawa
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
A career employee who joined Nintendo in April 1994, he became head of the Corporate Planning Department in July 2015 and Director and Managing Executive Officer in June 2016, becoming President 24 years after joining. He rose through corporate planning rather than development and has no family ties to the founders. In the fiscal year ended March 2015 the Yamauchi family's holdings amounted only to Katsuhito Yamauchi's 1.98%, while the top positions were held by foreign corporations and trust banks such as JPMorgan Chase Bank with 10.89% and State Street Bank with 9.65%.
Selection
In June 2018 he succeeded Tatsumi Kimishima as President. In the fiscal year ended March 2018, the year before he took office, consolidated net sales were ¥1,055.7 billion and operating income ¥177.6 billion, having just more than doubled from ¥489.0 billion and ¥29.4 billion the previous year thanks to the launch of Nintendo Switch. The challenge was how far to grow the new console that had just begun selling, and his hands-on work supporting its launch as head of Corporate Planning appears to have been the reason he was chosen.
Initiatives
In March 2020 the company released "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," and in the fiscal year ended March 2021 consolidated net sales grew to ¥1,758.9 billion and operating income to ¥640.6 billion. In the FY ended March 2022 cumulative sales of Nintendo Switch exceeded 100 million units. Consolidated employees increased from 5,501 in the FY ended March 2018 to 7,724 in the FY ended March 2024. In June 2025, his eighth year in office, the company launched the successor Nintendo Switch 2, which sold at the fastest pace in its history to 15 million units cumulatively.
Career
Career
Nintendo
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Apr 1994 | Joined |
| Jul 2015 | General Manager, Corporate Planning Office |
| Jun 2016 | Director, Managing Executive Officer |
| Jun 2018 | Representative Director, President |