Obayashi Corporation's next president, Toshimi Sato, holds press conference, focusing on business growth in non-construction fields
December 25, 2024
President-elect Sato (right) and President Hasuwa shaking hands at the press conference
Obayashi Corporation will have a new top executive for the first time in seven years since March 2018. Representative Director and Executive Vice President Sato Toshimi, who will take up the post of president on April 1, 2025, held a press conference at the company's headquarters in Minato Ward, Tokyo on the 23rd, where he revealed his plans after assuming the post. He stated that the new structure will steadily advance the mid-term management plan, which ends in fiscal 2014, and that "while domestic construction will be at the core, we will also accelerate our efforts to generate results in non-construction areas that are equal to or better than domestic construction." He expressed his ambition to "strive to further improve our corporate value."
Sato emphasized that "we will firmly maintain our position as one of the leading companies" in the domestic construction market, and stated his recognition that "we will expand our business domain from upstream to downstream in order to achieve further growth. In the midst of globalization, business expansion, centered on overseas construction, is also a major factor." Sato, who has a background in administrative work such as corporate planning and finance, has also worked overseas for a long time. He plans to utilize his experience in M&A (mergers and acquisitions) that he was in charge of while stationed in the United States. While strengthening the group's management base, the company will work on business transformation that is not bound by past frameworks.
President Kenji Hasuwa said, "Management and technical insight are completely separate," and praised Sato as "someone who can manage while looking at the whole picture." The company decided to transition to a new structure because "management that is conscious of capital efficiency is being evaluated, with the construction business's profit recovery and the stock price reaching a new high since the company was listed," said Hasuwa.
