READY FOR THE FUTURE

Teijin CEO determined to ensure the Japanese fibre and materials maker has a clear and sustainable plan for the next 10-15 years before he steps aside.

As Japan’s Teijin Group celebrates its centennial, president and CEO Jun Suzuki, who also turns 60 today, has every reason to be happy. Having worked for the maker of advanced fibres — the only employer he has known for 34 years — Mr Suzuki has begun to lay down a solid foundation for the next 100 years of Teijin.

“This is very common in Japan, you know,” Mr Suzuki says of lifelong work for one company as we begin our conversation during his recent visit to Bangkok.

Though he is not intending to step down from his current position anytime soon, Mr Suzuki notes that he has had a succession plan in place ever since he became the CEO of Teijin in April 2014.

“I assumed the CEO position in April 2014 and in May of the same year I had to present my succession plan to the advisory board. Just one month after taking my position — that’s the system,” he recalls.

The advisory board, which includes Mr Suzuki, is not the one that picks the CEO. Comprising 12 members including seven outside experts — two or three of whom are not Japanese — it recommends someone to the company board of directors, which will make the ultimate choice.

“The succession plan means not only the successor,” Mr Suzuki points out. “At that time, in 2014 and 2015, most of the discussions were spent on how I should develop the candidates, how I should select a candidate, how I should nurture that person to be a potential CEO. So it’s a longterm vision.

“At first I didn’t know [who might be the successor] but by November 2014 I had already started looking. I had to think about how to assess the candidates, how I could encourage them. Of course there was not just one person but a pool of them — it actually consisted of more than 10 at first.”

So far, about 60 potential candidates have been assessed. “I still plan to assess another 30 or 60 this year. It’s a kind of continuous process for only one position. It’s good because even if someone cannot be the CEO, he or she can be fully educated for the job and he or she can be a good supporter of the next CEO.”

With consolidated sales of ¥741.3 billion (US$6.5 billion) in the fiscal year ending March 2017, Teijin comprises 170 companies with 19,000 employees working in more than 20 countries including Thailand. Nearly 40% of its net sales come from fibre products, 31% from the materials business, 20% from healthcare and the remaining 7% from other sources. Japan accounts for 61% of sales, followed by the rest of Asia (22%), the United States (9%), and Europe and other markets (8%).

Just last week, Teijin announced that it would establish a resin compound plant and a related research and development (R&D) facility at Teijin Corporation (Thailand) Ltd in Bang Pa-in Industrial Estate in Ayutthaya. With an annual capacity of 10,000 tonnes, the plant will cost ¥1.5 billion ($13 million) to build and is expected to begin operations in mid-2019.

Asked what kind of personality the company’s next CEO should have, Mr Suzuki says that whoever takes the job needs to be “always evolving”.

“[He or she should be] always willing to improve, to run new things or challenge,” he tells Asia Focus.

“In some areas, business experience is needed, and so is attractiveness to people including employees and other stakeholders.”

The new boss, he continues, should not chase just his or her own rewards but rather corporate profit. “Some people like to have power and so they only chase more power. A CEO has great power but having power is not the most important thing. Rather, utilising that power toward the benefit of people, the company and society is the most important thing.

“If he or she tries to utilise power for its own sake, it could lead to some mistakes. This kind of mindset or character, we have to be aware of these parts as well.”

SERVING FUTURE SOCIETY

Under its mid-term management plan announced last year for 2017-19, Teijin aims to create value in terms of what society needs, thereby striving to achieve the goal of becoming an enterprise that is essential for tomorrow’s society. Named “Always Evolving”, the plan focuses on utilising its workforce diversity, establishing new core businesses through transformation strategies, and strengthening group-wide management systems.

“The first thing we did under this plan was to think about the image of the company 10 or 15 years from now. What kind of businesses should we undertake or what kind of company would we like to be? Our conclusion was that we want to be an enterprise that supports the society of the future,” says Mr Suzuki.

“To achieve that, Teijin has to create new value. This is quite important. We have to change ourselves, change our portfolio, grow the existing business, categorise businesses and undertake transformation for the next 10 or 15 years.”

The second challenge was to narrow down its business focus. The company has selected three fields — eco-friendly solutions, disaster mitigation (infrastructure-related) solutions, and ageing society solutions — to focus on. Third, it had to y formulate the direction it needed to take to achieve its goals.

“The ‘super old’ or ageing society, for example, is something Teijin businesses have been involved in already but new areas will be explored,” says Mr Suzuki. “Artificial joints, in particular, are currently dominated by US and European-based companies, and Japan as well as other Asian countries have to rely on imported products.

“The next thing is how to achieve the direction we should go in. My vision is that Teijin in the future will not restrict itself. That’s why I have said that we should always try to change. That’s why I say we are always evolving.”

As far as material science is concerned, Mr Suzuki points out that Teijin aims to strengthen its position as a provider of lightweight materials, mainly for automobiles, airplanes, trains and other mobility-related applications.

The company early last year announced the $825-million acquisition of Continental Structural Plastics (CSP) which specialises in lightweight composite technology for the automotive industry.

Through the acquisition, Teijin said it expected to realise significant synergies, with the combined companies to utilise high-performance composite technologies including glass fibre-reinforced thermosets and thermoplastics, carbon fibre, aramid fibres and multi-material hybrid composites. These materials will be used to manufacture a range of lightweight components including auto body panels, battery carriers and a number of structural applications that will help the automotive industry meet new design and regulatory challenges.

“I saw this as a good combination of the fibre-reinforced plastics of CSP and Teijin’s carbon-reinforced plastics. So those combination is ideal,” Mr Suzuki notes. “In the future, we will be able to provide anything for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers). That’s providing solutions to customers.”

By enhancing its global development capabilities as a solution provider, allowing the combined business to better address the requirements of global automakers, Teijin projects its automotive composite products business will achieve annual sales of $2 billion by 2030.

Last year, Teijin announced it had fully transferred the production of its primary polyester-fibre brands to Teijin Polyester (Thailand) Ltd (TPL), a local subsidiary of Teijin Frontier Co Ltd. Thailand is now the hub of Teijin’s strategic global polyester-fibre production.

The Japanese company first set foot in the country in 1966 to carry out imports and exports of polyester fibre, and local production started the following year. The Teijin group in Thailand now comprises nine companies with 1,900 employees and sales of 15 billion baht.

Teijin Frontier, which specialises in fibre-product conversion, has also set up a research and development facility at Thailand Science Park as one of its three strategic R&D hubs in Asia along with a polymerisation and fibre R&D facility in Matsuyama, Japan, and that of Teijin Product Development China in Nantong.

FOOTBALL & TRAVEL

While he has not decided exactly when he expects to step down from the CEO post, Mr Suzuki says it won’t be this year. “Not so soon,” he replies, declining to specify the company’s retirement age.

Nonetheless, he can now i magine life after retirement.

“After retirement, I would love to travel because (as a CEO), now I have two or three private holidays a year, but only short ones — just going up and relaxing in a Japanese hot spa,” he says, adding that since taking the top post, he has not actually spent any holiday outside Japan.

“But in Japan, we have lots of beautiful places,” he adds with a smile.

“Probably I want to have some kind of long vacation, relax completely and also try to do something good for the society. If possible, I want to go outside Japan to somewhere in Europe. In the past, I spent a total of four to five years in Europe but there are still lots of places I haven’t visited,” he points out, referring to his assignments with Teijin in London and the Netherlands.

More than 20 years ago, Mr Suzuki took his first overseas assignment as a research manager for a small laboratory in London and stayed there for three years. In 2011-12, he was Teijin’s European representative and president of Teijin Holdings Netherlands BV, overseeing most of the group’s businesses in Europe. The Netherlands is Teijin’s headquarters for its European business.

“There are lots of famous beautiful places so I would love to visit those places, mainly in eastern Europe, for example Croatia. Also, I haven’t visited southern parts of America and Asia, and southern parts of Africa,” he says.

“The first thing I plan to do (after retirement) may be to relax in Japan first, and then I’ll start thinking about the countries I would love to go to.”

His hobby, meanwhile, is playing football, something he did on a regular basis until just five or six years ago. Nowadays, he contents himself with watching matches.

“I’m crazy for football,” says the Japanese executive, laughing. “I started playing football when I was in elementary school age and I continued to enjoy playing until 2011 when I stopped, possibly because of my age. Now I still watch the matches of European teams.”

In the past, baseball was more popular among the Japanese than football, but when the national team made it to the Olympics in 1968 and won the bronze medal, the football age started in Japan, according to Mr Suzuki.

“I used to be a Manchester United fan but now my favourite team is Barcelona,” he adds.

Mr Suzuki has already visited Spain, but once he finds himself less occupied with work after retirement, I expect that you just might one day find him sitting back and relaxing while watching his favourite team playing at Camp Nou.

A CEO has great power but having power is not the most important thing. Rather, utilising that power toward the benefit of people, the company and society is the most important thing