All change at Toyota HQ
The next CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation will be Kenta Kon, who has been promoted into the role from chief financial officer.
He is seen one of the main players in the carmaker’s profits and is also a longtime confidant of Akio Toyoda, current chairman and the company’s former chief executive officer.
Current CEO Koji Sato, who became Toyoda’s successor in January 2023, will become vice-chairman and takes on the new position of chief industry officer. Executive vice-president Yoichi Miyazaki, who has previously served as CFO, will replace Kon, pictured, as finance boss.
The changes take effect on April 1.
The company describes the management shuffle as relieving the workload on Sato, who took over in January as chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association. Since May 2025, he has also served as vice-chairman of Keidanren, Japan’s most powerful business association.
“Under this new structure, Sato will focus on the broader industry, including Toyota, as vice-chairman and chief information officer, while Kon will focus on internal company management as president and CEO,” according to a statement issued by Toyota on February 6.
Essentially, the changes amount to swapping a car guy engineer for a financial guru at the top and installing putting a business executive at the top for the first time Toyoda became chief executive in 2009.
Kon says: “My role will be establishing this good profit structure, this foundation, so the people can take on courageous challenges. I want to use that money for the future of Toyota.”
Toyota appointed its new CEO on the same day it announced a 1.9 per cent decline in operating profit to ¥1.2 trillion – or about NZ$12.64 billion – in its fiscal quarter ending December 31.
On the flipside, global sales rose by three per cent to 2.5 million vehicles in the same period and the company lifted its fiscal full-year earnings forecast.
Toyota now expects operating profit to finish at ¥3.8tn, or NZ$38.74b, in the 12 months ending March 31 –or down by 21 per cent from the year before.
Kon was first appointed as Toyota’s CFO in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic and global semiconductor shortage. Miyazaki took over that role in 2023 before Kon was reappointed as CFO last year.
The 57-year-old also serves as the CFO of Woven by Toyota, the carmaker’s software and automated driving spinoff. He has been in that position for three years.
In addition, Kon is a director at Toyota Fudosan, a Toyota Group real-estate company, and helped develop Toyota’s new trajectory of profit generation from selling services and add-ons to its 150 million vehicles already on the road.
This approach has relieved Toyota from reliance on simply selling cars, and has created huge revenue through ongoing business in parts, accessories, used vehicles, connected services and sales finance.
Sato, meanwhile, rose through the ranks at Lexus. The 56-year-old developed some of its most prominent vehicles, such as the LC 500 sports coupe, and led the marque through a period of growth. Under his leadership, Toyota delivered record worldwide sales of 11.3m vehicles in 2025 to keep its global sales crown despite American tariffs.
