Osamu Suzuki, who ran Suzuki Motor Corp. , known for its minicars and motorcycles, for several decades and led the company’s global expansion, has died. He was 94 years old.
Suzuki died of lymphoma on Dec. 25, the company said in a statement.
Born Osamu Matsuda, Suzuki married into the circle of relatives after whom the Hamamatsu, Japan-based automaker is named. During his long tenure, he formed partnerships with General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG to sell cars in North America and Europe and leveraged Suzuki Motor’s expertise in small cars to gain a dominant share of the Indian market.
“If I were to listen to everybody, it would make things too slow,” Suzuki said of his leadership philosophy in “I’m a Small-Business Boss,” a Japanese-language memoir published in 2009. “Never stop, or else you lose.”
Suzuki’s 28 years as president, spread over two terms, made him the longest-serving executive at a global automaker. He passed the presidency to his son in June 2015 and took over as president and CEO, a dual name he held for a year before resigning as CEO following false reporting about fuel economy. The company admitted to employing unapproved methods to monitor the fuel economy of its vehicles in Japan, leading to a sharp sell-off in the company’s stock and a wave of takeovers.
The automaker sold about 3. 2 million vehicles globally in the fiscal year ending March 2024, leading Japanese automaker and global No. 1 Toyota Motor Corp. , according to data compiled by Bloomberg. More than a portion of those cars were sold in India, where the company’s Indian subsidiary, Maruti Suzuki, owns the majority.
Osamu Suzuki, a former bank clerk, entered the automobile business through his arranged marriage to Shoko Suzuki, granddaughter of Michio Suzuki, founder of Suzuki Motor’s predecessor, a loom manufacturer, in 1909. Osamu Suzuki took the name from his wife, so it is a Japanese tradition that there is no male heir in the business’s circle of relatives.
He joined the company in 1958, three years after the debut of its first motorcycle, the ColledaCOX 125cc 4-cycle, and the Suzulight 360cc 2-cycle car, which helped usher in Japan’s minivehicle age.
He held several management positions before becoming president in 1978. The following year, he made his first mark by introducing the Alto mini car to Japan. A success, this model is characterized by having resurrected the national minicar market.
Betting that the company could gain a foothold in small markets ignored by larger competitors, he led Suzuki Motor’s expansion through building production bases from Pakistan to Hungary.
In 1981, Detroit-based GM, then the world’s largest automaker, agreed to acquire a stake in Suzuki Motor, which was looking to expand in North America and Europe. GM would later own up to 20% of Suzuki Motor after doubling its stake in 2001. After five consecutive quarterly losses, the U. S. automaker began promoting its Suzuki Motor shares for cash in 2006 and finalized divestment in 2008. GM was declared in quiebra. al following year, in the midst of the global currency crisis.
After the GM alliance was dissolved, Suzuki Motor agreed to a tie-up with Germany’s VW, which bought a 19.9% stake in 2010.
That alliance turned to acrimony after VW described Suzuki Motor as an “associate” in an annual report, and Suzuki accused VW of belittling its honor by claiming it had violated its partnership agreement by buying engines from Italy’s Fiat SpA. The partnership ended in September 2015 when Suzuki Motor bought VW shares worth $3. 8 billion.
Osamu Suzuki said the company would value its independence in its long-term relationships with other automakers. Suzuki formed an equity alliance with Toyota in 2019.
His greatest achievement was often considered to be his expansion into India. He came across a newspaper article about the Indian government’s search for an automaking partner and in 1982 met with a team from the South Asian nation in a Tokyo hotel.
Suzuki Motor agreed to set up a company with the Indian government on the outskirts of New Delhi and acquired a 26% stake in state-owned automaker Maruti Udyog. The following year, the company introduced the Maruti 800 small car, which is so popular that waiting times to buy it can be up to 3 years.
Maruti, now a unit of Suzuki Motor, quickly became the biggest carmaker in India, though its market share has been eroded by Hyundai Motor Co. and Tata Motors Ltd.
Suzuki is also now one of the world’s leading motorcycle manufacturers, promoting around 1. 9 million units in the 12 months ended March 31. The logo stands out for winning world titles.
Osamu Suzuki was born on January 30, 1930 in Gero, a town in Gifu prefecture, central Japan. He is the fourth child of a farming family. An aspiring politician, he worked part-time as a top school instructor and night watchman while completing his law studies at Tokyo’s Chuo University, according to a March 2009 article in Nikkei BP magazine.
After graduating from Chuo in 1953, he worked in a bank until his marriage led him to the family business.
After stepping down as president in 2000, he became president and CEO of Suzuki Motor. He returned to the presidency at the age of 78 in December 2008, when Suzuki Motor expected its first profit decline in 8 years as the global recession and tightened lending weighed on auto demand.
“In the face of an extremely difficult business environment, I have to stand at the forefront,” he wrote in his memoir. “In the past 30 years, a sense of complacency has spread throughout the company. As the one who brought the company to where it is, I have to correct this and lead the company until the economy improves.”
Suzuki felt a sense of duty for the company’s faulty fuel-testing practices in Japan, and apologized to a room of reporters in 2016 as his son and president, Toshihiro Suzuki, stood firm in his appearance. Array Suzuki Motor’s “top-down culture” made it tricky to get more young workers to control technique over test issues, Toshihiro Suzuki said.
Osamu Suzuki renounced his CEO name and took a 40% pay cut, but remained president, a position he held until 2021, just as the arrival of electric cars began to seriously shake up companies. Historic car brands of the world.
During the briefing in which he announced his retirement, Suzuki expressed satisfaction with the company’s control and added that he “will continue to be available for advice. ” In addition, he assured that he is “full of life” after having played golf 47 times. in the last year.
He and his wife had three children.