Hiroshi Okuda, the Japanese business executive who led Toyota Motor Corp. as president from 1995 to 1999 and chairman from 1999 to 2006, died Aug. 8, 2026, at 93, of old age, Nikkei reported.
Okuda joined Toyota in 1955 and moved from accounting to oversee operations in the Philippines and then the company’s international business. He became president in 1995. At Toyota, where decisions had traditionally moved through a senior hierarchy, he promoted younger managers and cut the time required for decisions from months to days or hours.
During his presidency, Toyota opened five overseas plants and expanded two others. The added capacity put more production close to customers abroad rather than relying mainly on exports from Japan.
In 1997, Okuda presented a system that combined a gasoline engine with an electric motor as Toyota’s answer to environmental problems. He promised a hybrid model within the year. The Prius reached the Japanese market later in 1997 with roughly twice the fuel efficiency of a comparable gasoline car. It won Japan Car of the Year and drew 3,500 first-month orders, three times Toyota’s target.
Okuda became chairman in 1999. During his chairmanship, Toyota expanded its sales and manufacturing operations, including production facilities in the United States and Europe. In a 2003 interview with Voice of America, he said Toyota had sold more than 6 million vehicles in 140 countries and about 150,000 gasoline-electric hybrids. Those hybrid sales represented roughly 90% of the worldwide market for hybrid vehicles.
