CEO Akio Toyoda, who has been largely invisible in recent weeks as Toyota Motor Co. dealt with recalls involving more than 8 million vehicles worldwide, surfaced Friday at a hastily arranged press conference at 9 p.m. local time in Japan to express his “regret” for causing “inconvenience and concern” to the company’s customers.
The grandson of Toyota’s founder promised to personally oversee a newly formed special global quality committee. He says Toyota also will ask outside advisers to critique its vehicle engineering, manufacturing and sales practices. Toyoda admits the company is “in crisis” but insists that “Toyota cars are safe.”
Crisis management experts say Toyoda needs to do much more. They have contended that the CEO should have been acting as the company’s public face all along instead of turning over that function to lesser-known U.S. and Japanese executives. Toyoda explained Friday that he prefers to delegate announcements to the most knowledgeable executive on any matter. His only other comment in recent weeks was a brief apology when a Japanese television crew cornered him at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month.
Critics say it’s a mistake to have Yoshi Inaba, president of Toyota’s North American operations, rather than Toyoda testify at two Congressional hearings this month. Toyota says Toyoda won’t appear at a hearing on Wednesday, refuting a report to the contrary in The Wall Street Journal that cites an unnamed senior company executive.