Sony Corp. has named Kazuo Hirai as president and CEO, replacing Howard Stringer, amid a projection for a fourth consecutive year of losses.
Kazuo Hirai
The change is effective April 1, Sony said in a statement Wednesday. Stringer will become chairman of the board after a shareholders’ meeting in June.
The promotion of Hirai, 51, will test his ability to carry out Stringer’s vision to integrate Sony’s TVs and computers with content from its entertainment businesses. Sony’s Walkman dominated portable players in the 1980s but has been overtaken by Apple Inc.’s iPod and failed to fend off Samsung Electronics Co. in the TV sector, while Nintendo Co. took the lead in video-game consoles. Sony is also forecasting an eighth consecutive year of losses at its TV business.
Hirai was one of four top executives Stringer was grooming as his successor and the only one with no engineering background.
Hirai is “loyal on one hand and well-educated in the convergence products, and I think he has a charming personality,” Stringer told reporters in Tokyo last year.
As president of the Consumer Products & Services Group at Sony as well as chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment, Hirai is already considered to be one of the most powerful executives in Sony. His main tasks will be turning Sony’s TV business around and finding a way to compete with Apple in the mobile gaming arena.
Hirai, whose hobbies include cycling, driving and collecting cameras, watches, model railroads and telescopes, moved to Sony Computer Entertainment America in 1995 and became president of the U.S. unit in 1999. He became president of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. in 2006, replacing Ken Kutaragi, who developed the PlayStation.
Source: Japan Times / Mashable
Image Credit: Japan Times
