Kiyohiko Sho
Profile
Performance in office
Tenure
Tenure
Background
He moved from Mitsubishi Shipbuilding to the old Mitsubishi Corporation, served as General Manager of Machinery and Managing Director, and then as President of Seiko Sangyo. At Mitsubishi Corporation, relaunched through the four-company merger of July 1954, he became Director and Executive Vice President, and rose to President in 1960. The relaunched Mitsubishi Corporation centered on steel, nonferrous metals and machinery, a product mix different from other major trading companies that leaned on prewar textile trading. Sho's career in machinery matched that product mix.
Selection
In 1960 he succeeded Katsujiro Takagaki as President. In the fiscal year ended March 1960, the year before he took office, non-consolidated revenue was ¥499.9 billion and ordinary income ¥2.1 billion. Within six years of the relaunch, the company had established Mitsubishi subsidiaries in the United States, Germany and Australia, completing the restoration of the overseas bases lost in the dissolution. Promoted from Executive Vice President, his appointment appears to have carried on the post-merger structure as it was.
Initiatives
In the 1960s Japan pursued heavy and chemical industrialization under its high-growth policy, and Mitsubishi Corporation, based on the Mitsubishi Group with its strong heavy industry and chemicals businesses, rode that momentum. Non-consolidated revenue grew from ¥499.9 billion in the fiscal year ended March 1960 to ¥887.5 billion in the FY ended March 1963, and ordinary income from ¥2.1 billion to ¥4.8 billion. In 1963 a Brunei LNG proposal that the Shell group had brought to Tokyo Gas was passed to Mitsubishi Corporation because of contractual ties from the Alaska LNG project.
Career
Career
Mitsubishi Corporation
| Date | Position |
|---|---|
| 1960 | President |
| 1965 | Stepped down as President |