Shunya Toji
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He served as manager of Sumitomo's Shanghai trading office for six years from 1932, and was the only officer at the launch of Nihon Kensetsu Sangyo with trading experience. Just before the trading company was launched he was a Director of Sumitomo Metal Industries and deputy head of its copper works, and he was chosen to lead the trading operation from among three candidates named from all staff by the accounting and personnel departments of the Sumitomo head office. He became Managing Director on December 11, 1945, and put the organization and staffing in place so that the sales department could open three weeks later on January 1, 1946.
Selection
The sales department's first job was to dig out aluminum and duralumin sheets from Sumitomo Metal Industries' copper works buried in bombing, and electric wire from Sumitomo Electric Industries submerged by the storm surge of the Makurazaki typhoon, then clean, repair and sell them. When the purge order reached the business world in January 1947, President Kenzo Takekoshi and two others who had been Managing Director or higher during the war fell under it, and at the board meeting of March 27 of that year Toji was chosen as the second President. Since no other officer knew the practical side of trading, the choice of successor appears to have effectively narrowed to him alone.
Initiatives
Staff numbers, 270 at the end of 1945, reached 720 by the end of 1948 with the transfer of 350 people, including demobilized soldiers and repatriates, from the Sumitomo head office and affiliated companies. In August 1949 the company listed its shares on the Osaka and Tokyo stock exchanges, still under the name Nihon Kensetsu Sangyo. In July 1950 it spun off its civil engineering and construction design and supervision department as Nikken Sekkei Komu, cutting loose its origins as a real estate company. In March 1952 it established Nikken New York Inc. in the United States, and in June of that year changed its name to Sumitomo Shoji (Sumitomo Corporation).
Career
Career
Sumitomo Corporation
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| Mar 1947 | President |
| 1956 | Stepped down as President |