Koji Sato is out as Toyota’s president and representative director. Kenta Kon, currently the company’s chief financial officer, will take the top job following the 122nd Ordinary General Shareholders’ Meeting in June 2026.
Toyota buried the announcement in a dense personnel reshuffling notice on March 5, listing dozens of title changes and committee memberships. Strip away the bureaucratic scaffolding and the headline is unmistakable: the company is changing its top executive for the second time in two years.
Sato took over as president from Akio Toyoda in April 2023. Toyoda, the grandson of Toyota’s founder, moved to chairman — and he’s staying there. His name appears first on the new board nominee list, retaining the title of Chairman of the Board of Directors and Representative Director. The family grip on Toyota’s governance remains unbroken.
What changes is the operating structure beneath him.
Kon will hold the titles of President, Member of the Board of Directors, and Representative Director, while also remaining an Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer. He’s been serving as CFO and as a director and CFO of Woven by Toyota, the company’s software and mobility subsidiary. That financial and tech-adjacent background signals where Toyota thinks its next challenges lie.
Sato, meanwhile, moves to a newly created role: Vice Chairman and Chief Industry Officer. It’s the kind of title that sounds important but sits conspicuously outside the direct chain of command. He loses his seat on the board entirely — listed plainly under “Outgoing Member of the Board of Directors.”
The reshuffle doesn’t stop there. Yoichi Miyazaki, already an Executive Vice President, picks up the CFO role Kon vacates. Hiroki Nakajima stays as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.
Takefumi Shiga, previously a deputy in the production group, gets elevated to Operating Officer and Chief Production Officer. That new title suggests Toyota wants manufacturing leadership with a louder voice at the table.
Toyota filed the notice simultaneously with the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange, a procedural move that underscores the global weight of the changes. The six director nominees still need formal approval at the June shareholders’ meeting, but that’s a formality. Toyota’s board nominations don’t get rejected.
The timing is worth examining. Toyota posted record profits in recent years, buoyed by hybrid vehicle demand and a weak yen. But the company faces intensifying pressure from Chinese EV makers, sluggish battery-electric sales in key markets, and a software development effort at Woven by Toyota that has yet to produce a breakthrough product.
Sato’s tenure was defined by ambitious multi-pathway electrification pledges and a sweeping reorganization, but execution has been uneven.
Kon’s promotion from CFO to president follows a pattern seen at other Japanese industrial giants — putting a numbers person in charge when the strategic bets get expensive and the margin for error shrinks. He knows where every yen goes. Toyota apparently decided that’s exactly who should be deciding where the next ones are spent.
Akio Toyoda remains the power center, holding representative director status and the chairmanship. The revolving door beneath him — from Sato to Kon in barely two years — raises an obvious question: how much autonomy does any Toyota president actually have when the founder’s grandson still sits at the head of the table?
The board’s composition reinforces the point. Two outside independent directors, four audit and supervisory committee members, and Toyoda presiding over all of it. The structure is technically compliant with Japanese corporate governance reform guidelines. Whether it’s truly independent is another conversation entirely.
Toyota’s official candidates take their seats after June. The real power map, though, was drawn on March 5.
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