Nidec Struggles with Succession

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Shigenobu Nagamori, the founder and chairman of Nidec, a company which focuses on electric motors, has so far proven to be unwilling to retire from his posts and to hand power over to the next generation, in spite of being 78 years old.

The average age of Japanese company CEO is just over 60 years old.

Nagamori founded Nidec in 1973, and during his remarkable tenure he built it up into a major corporation with annual revenues in excess of US$11 billion, employing over 110,000 people.

Nagamori gained a legendary reputation for his strict discipline and his philosophy of “Stick to Number 1,” meaning that the company’s goal is to become the absolute top firm in every field it competes in.

Perhaps it is because of this perfectionist orientation that Nagamori now finds it difficult to hand over authority to anyone else. He simply can’t find anyone who can reach his lofty standards of leadership.

In April last year, Jun Seki, a former deputy chief operating officer of Nissan Motor, was appointed to take over as the leader of Nidec. However, he only lasted about a year. Nagamori explained, “Since Seki took over as CEO, the corporate culture based on hard work has been lost.” He disapproved of the direction the company was taking, and so he sacked him.

Last month, Seki resigned from the company entirely.

73-year-old Vice Chairman Hiroshi Kobe replaced Seki, but obviously this is only a stopgap measure.

The future of Nidec remains uncertain, but one thing that is clear is that it will be extremely difficult to fill Nagamori’s shoes, at least if Nagamori himself has anything to say about it.
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