Toyota is getting a new CEO as of April 1, with Koji Sato stepping away from the role after 3 years.
For the past three years since Akio Toyoda stepped down from the helm at Toyota, Koji Sato has been leading the company thorugh a new era in high-profile launches and increased global competition. Now, though, Koji Sato will move into a different role within the Japanese automaker, with chief financial officer Kenta Kon ascending to the CEO position as of April 1. The company is reshuffling its executive structure as it faced a 43% drop in quarterly profit for its last fiscal quarter.
Sato, for his part, will still remain at Toyota. Instead of being the chief executive, he will become vice chairman and chief industry officer. Toyota contends the move is to redistribute the workload, as Sato also became chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturer’s Association last month. In his new role within Toyota, Sato will “focus on the broader industry”.
Kon will then come in and take over the company’s internal management as president and CEO of the world’s largest automaker. “My role will be establishing this good profit structure, this foundation, so that the people can take on courageous challenges” he said during the company’s news conference announcing the shakeup.
You could take a few different interpretations of the “courageous challenges” to which Kon is referring. The company has been pushing its Gazoo Racing arm with models like the Supra, GR86 and GR Corolla (among others outside North America), as well as the new GR GT supercar. It’s now its own identity with fun and interesting cars within the brand. Toyota is also navigating the ever-shifting electrification journey, with Chinese brands vying to establish dominance within the EV space. Beyond that, the automaker also competes in virtually every segment, having to fight off rivals to maintain its number one position in segments that include the RAV4 SUV and Tacoma pickup, to name two of the most popular examples.
What will this mean for Toyota moving forward?
In publishing its latest financial results, Toyota is forecasting lower operating income for fiscal year 2026 (ending in June), to the tune of 995.5 billion yen (~$6.4 billion). In part, it blamed the company’s lower profits on U.S. tariffs, but noted that “competitiveness has led to increased sales volumes, and we achieved a high level of profit due to price revisions.”
Even though North America is Toyota’s largest market by a wide margin, part of Kon’s focus will likely home in on boosting profits in the region — the only one where it posted an operating loss (albeit a small one) of 5.6 billion yen ($35 million) in 2025.
As for what this means in terms of Toyota’s product portfolio, we’ll have to wait and see. The automaker has a new reveal coming up soon, so we’ll keep you posted on updates as they crop up.
