Osamu Suzuki, who ran Suzuki Motor Corp., known for its minicars and motorcycles, across several decades and drove the company’s global expansion, has died. He was 94.
Suzuki died of lymphoma on Dec. 25, the company said in a statement.
Born Osamu Matsuda, Suzuki married into the family that gave the Hamamatsu, Japan-based automaker its name. During his long tenure, he formed partnerships with General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG to sell vehicles in North America and Europe and leveraged Suzuki Motor’s expertise in small cars to build a dominant market share in India.
“If I had to pay attention to everyone, things would slow down,” Suzuki said of his leadership philosophy in “I’m a Small Business Boss,” a Japanese-language memoir published in 2009. “Never stop or you will lose. “
Suzuki’s 28 years as chairman, 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 chairman and chief executive officer, a dual name he retained for a year before stepping down as CEO following false information about fuel economy. The company admitted to employing unapproved methods to control the fuel economy of its vehicles in Japan, leading to a sharp sell-off in the company’s stock and a wave of outages.
The automaker sold about 3.2 million vehicles worldwide in the fiscal year that ended in March 2024, trailing Japan’s dominant carmaker and world No. 1 Toyota Motor Corp., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. More than half of those vehicles were sold in India, where the company’s Indian unit, Maruti Suzuki, holds the lion’s share.
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 circle of relatives of the business.
He joined the company in 1958, three years after the launch of its first motorcycle, the ColledaCOX 125cc 4-stroke and the Suzulight 360cc 2-stroke, which helped usher in the mini-vehicle era in Japan.
He held several control positions before becoming president in 1978. The following year, he made his first mark by introducing the Alto minicar to Japan. A wonderful success, this style is credited with the resurrection of 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 construction 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 American automaker began selling its Suzuki Motor shares for cash in 2006 and completed the divestment in 2008. GM filed for bankruptcy the following year, amid 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 descended into acrimony after VW described Suzuki Motor as an “associate” in an annual report, and Suzuki accused VW of disparaging its honor by alleging it had violated their partnership agreement by buying engines from Italy’s Fiat SpA. The partnership ended in September 2015 when Suzuki Motor bought back VW’s $3.8 billion of shares.
Osamu Suzuki said the company would put a price on its independence in its long-term relationships with other automakers. Suzuki formed an equity alliance with Toyota in 2019.
Its greatest achievement was thought to be its expansion into India. He came across a newspaper article about the Indian government’s search for a car production partner and, in 1982, met a team from the South Asian country at a Tokyo hotel.
Suzuki Motor has agreed to set up a venture with the Indian government in New Delhi and acquired a 26% stake in state-owned carmaker Maruti Udyog. The following year, the company introduced the Maruti 800 small car, which was so popular that waiting times to purchase it could be up to three years.
Maruti, now part of Suzuki Motor, temporarily became India’s largest automaker; its market share was eroded by Hyundai Motor Co. and Tata Motors Ltd.
Suzuki is also one of the world’s leading motorcycle brands today, 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 was the fourth child of a farming family. Aspiring to be a politician, he worked part-time as a top-notch 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 enroll in 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 incredibly difficult economic environment, I will have to be on the front line,” he wrote in his memoirs. “Over the past 30 years, a sense of complacency has pervaded the company. As the one who was given the company to where it is, I will have to fix this and lead the company until the economy improves.
Suzuki felt a similar sense of duty for the company’s fuel-testing practices in Japan, and apologized to a room of reporters in 2016 when his son and president, Toshihiro Suzuki, stood by his side. Suzuki Motor’s “vertical culture” has made it complicated. younger workers coming to the checkpoint in case of problems with testing, Suzuki said.
Osamu Suzuki ceded his title as CEO and accepted a 40% pay cut but remained as chairman, a title he held until 2021, just as the advent of electric cars started to roil the world’s legacy automakers in earnest.
During the briefing announcing its retirement, Suzuki was pleased with the company’s control, adding that it “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.