Print

Mail

wiki links

Sony gets Welsh chief executive

"I am first and foremost a Sony warrior. This is our destiny, and this is our responsibility."

Howard Stringer, Sony Corp's new chief executive

Sony Corp's shareholders yesterday approved Howard Stringer, the Welsh-born head of the company's entertainment arm, as its new chief executive, making him the first foreigner to head the Japanese electronics, music and movie conglomerate.

Stringer, 63, a dual British-US national, has helped turn Sony's music and movie business into one of its few bright spots in recent years. He replaces Nobuyuki Idei, who led the Tokyo-based company for a decade.

The vote came at a shareholders meeting in Tokyo, packed with more than 6,000 people at a Tokyo hotel.

During the two-hour meeting, Stringer, Idei and other executives were questioned by investors about how Sony planned a comeback at a time when its stock price has plunged to less than half of what it was five years ago.

Stringer reassured investors that he planned to engineer Sony's revival and work to deliver global stature to the company even though he may be a foreigner.

"I am first and foremost a Sony warrior. This is our destiny, and this is our responsibility," he said at the meeting, shown through monitors to reporters.

Stringer faces an enormous challenge in turning around Sony, which has been hit with losses in its consumer electronics business amid competition from cheaper Asian rivals.

It has been weighed down with restructuring costs while getting beaten in key growing sectors, such as portable music players like Apple Computer Inc's iPod.

Typical of the critical sentiments was investor Shinji Takimoto, who asked why Idei was unable to produce results that lived up to the company's profit targets.

Idei acknowledged he had underestimated the pervasive global changes in consumer electronics.

"I was not able to read the changes. I feel my responsibility is heavy," he said.

Analysts say that Stringer must come up with a strategy for growth, not just rely on cost cuts, and that is difficult at a time when the price of consumer electronics products are diving but Sony must continue to spend more on research to maintain its technological edge.

"It's hard to keep spending to keep that Sony premium. Mr. Stringer has a lot to do -- to say the least," said John Yang, equity analyst at Standard & Poor's in Tokyo.

Idei and other executives said Sony will return to its past glory because it still boasts first-rate technology and merely needs to do more to match that up with consumer trends and tastes.

"The question is not whether someone is Japanese or a foreigner. The more important question is that person's managerial competence and what kind of spirit he possesses," Idei said in defense of Stringer's appointment.

Foreign executives at major Japanese companies are still extremely rare. One exception has been Brazilian-born Carlos Ghosn, chief executive at Nissan Motor Co, who has become a hero here by reviving the automaker from near-collapse to growth in the past several years. Ghosn is now also chief executive of Nissan's French partner Renault SA.

Stringer, who was previously vice chairman at Sony and chief executive of Sony Corp of America, speaks no Japanese. He took US citizenship in 1985, becoming a dual British-American national. He will continue to live in New York, where he now resides, traveling between the US and Japan, Sony said.
This story has been viewed 1580 times.