Sony's Hirai to replace Stringer as CEO
— -- Sony is turning to a new CEO to help the company reinvigorate its TV and electronics business.
Kazuo Hirai, who currently heads the company's consumer electronics business, will replace current CEO and president Howard Stringer on April 1, the company announced today. Stringer, who will succeed current chairman of the board Yotaro Kobayashi, has been grooming Hirai for the post.
"Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature," Stringer said in a statement. "I believe his tough-mindedness and leadership skills will be of great benefit to the company and its customers in the months and years ahead."
As Sony's youngest CEO ever, Hirai, 51, faces a massive challenge. Sony has been fighting to regain its image as a global leader in gadgets as consumers have increasingly turned to rival offerings such as the iPod and iPhone from Apple, making the Walkman brand a has-been. It has also fallen behind in liquid-crystal displays for TVs to South Korean manufacturer Samsung Electronics Co.
"The task in front of (him) is by no means easy. He has a massive challenge to turn around the business, which comes on the heels of the tsunami and earthquake impact less than a year ago," says analyst P.J. McNealy of Digital World Research. "Sony has had a string of unfortunate events, some of which were self-inflicted, and the hope is Kaz can help right the ship. … He has to help Sony figure out what they stand for as a brand and as a company."
The management shuffle came a day before the company was to announce fiscal third-quarter earnings.
Battered by a strong yen and poor sales in its flat-panel TV business, Sony has forecast its fourth straight year of net losses for the fiscal year through March. The company has gone through massive cost cuts and restructuring and is hoping to recover in flat-panel TV, gaming and personal computer businesses.
"The path we must take is clear: to drive the growth of our core electronics businesses — primarily digital imaging, smart mobile and game; to turn around the television business; and to accelerate the innovation that enables us to create new business domains," Hirai said in a statement.
At one-time a self-described "gofer" at Sony Music in Japan, Hirai earned years of experience helping grow Sony's video game presence. He rose to run Sony Music's international business affairs office before joining Sony Computer Entertainment America in 1995 as it prepared to launch its first game system, the PlayStation.
Hirai remembered "Father of the PlayStation" Ken Kutaragi, then president of Sony Computer Entertainment, urging then-Sony Corp. president Norio Ohga to launch the venture after an agreement to create a CD-ROM add-on for Nintendo soured. Video games were "an unknown business for everybody at Sony, and I think the other Sony executives were more cautious about getting into it," said Hirai in an past interview. "I wasn't there, but I believe the words Mr. Ohga used were: 'Do it.' "
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