Economy Toyota gets a new CEO

Wary eyes are on the 53-year-old incoming chief of Toyota Motor introduced on Thursday, as the longtime engineer must now navigate the company through a rough and rapid race against new opponents and manufacturing headwinds in the car industry. [...] A 1992 graduate of Waseda University with a major in mechanical engineering, Sato has been building Toyota's cars for three decades, including the Prius, Toyota's flagship hybrid vehicle, and a Corolla racing car that runs on hydrogen. He was chief engineer and is now president of the luxury brand Lexus. Toyoda has regarded the veteran engineer as someone who has "worked hard on the scene of car manufacturing to acquire Toyota's philosophy, techniques, and manners," a quality Toyoda raised as the primary reason for Sato's appointment. The position of a chief engineer is "like a quasi-president" that requires "coordinating hundreds of engineers involved in car manufacturing," said analyst Seiji Sugiura of Tokai Tokyo Research Institute. While Sato has not been the top candidate for Toyoda's successors, his career makes his management skills "certifiable."

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