Shoichiro Toyoda

Son to the company founder, Toyoda, in 1952, joined his father's business at Toyota Motors. In ten years, he had risen to the position of managing director. He was promoted to senior managing director in 1967, executive vice president in 1972, and president of the Company's marketing organization in 1981.[6]

The merger of the sales and production organizations in 1982 produced Toyota Motor Corporation. Toyoda became the new entity's first president. The disparate nature of the two distinct corporate cultures required his attention, and the extent to which the "oil and water" of these two Toyota groups were merged successfully was attributed in large part to his leadership.[7] He served as chairman from 1992 to 1999; and he became honorary chairman in 1999.[6]

Toyoda's leadership would be integral to the global introduction into popular culture of the Lexus brand of luxury automobiles and environmentally focused Prius engine electric hybrids.

• 1980 – Deming Prize, Japan.[2]
• 1993 – International Fellow Royal Academy of Engineering[8]
• 2000 – FISITA Medal of the International Federation of Automotive Engineering Societies
• 2005 – Society of Automotive Engineers Foundation's Manufacturing Leadership Award, United States.[6]
• 2007 – Induction into the Automotive Hall of Fame, Detroit, MI, USA

Grandson to the founder of Toyoda Automatic Loomworks, and son to the Toyota Motors founder, Shoichiro Toyoda was born in Nagoya on February 17, 1925,[11] to Kiichiro Toyoda and Hatako née Shinshichi Toyoda, the daughter of the Takashimaya department store chain co-founder, Iida Shinshichi. He attended the Tokyo First Middle School (Hibiya High School) and First High School(Tokyo University), and graduated from Nagoya Imperial University (Nagoya University) in 1947 with a degree in Engineering BS. He would be awarded a PhD, by Tohoku University, in 1955. At the height of the pacific theater of World War II, the Toyoda family was effected on both family business and home fronts. Shoichiro's education would be delayed by his own conscription into civil service, and his father's business warrant to manufacture trucks for the imperial Japanese Army, of which his family's firm was spared destruction in the days before the Japanese government's surrender.

• Basu, Shankar. (1999). Corporate Purpose: Why it Matters More Than Strategy. London: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-8153-3374-6
• Hino, Satoshi and Andrew Dillon. (2006). Inside the Mind of Toyota: Management Principles for Enduring Growth. Productivity Press. ISBN 978-1-56327-300-1; OCLC 62127859

• Toyota Motor Corporation: official bio