Kazuo Hirai: Sony’s Mr. Fix It

Kazuo Hirai was born on December 22, 1960 in Tokyo, Japan. He belongs to a breed of Japanese who have spent a good deal of their life being exposed and living in different cultures. He attended the American School in Japan.  Hirai was also able to go to places like Canada, New York, California as well as around Japan tagging along with his father who was a wealthy banker.

Hirai notes that this kind of exposure helped him later in his career success which has spanned different continents. He graduated from the International Christian University in 1984 and then worked for CBS/Sony Inc., marketing international music within Japan.  Later Hirai became the head of Sony Computer Entertainment Japan’s international business affairs office in New York.

He played an important role in the success of PlayStation in the U.S. With the continued success of PlayStation Hirai eventually became Chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment. A reorganization also took place within Sony with one group becoming “Consumer Products & Services Group”. Hirai was promoted to Representative Corporate Executive Officer and Executive Deputy President of Sony Corporation and headed this reorganized group.

Rumors began to spread that Hirai would succeed Sony Corporation president and CEO Howard Stringer.  The rumors became true when he was appointed the new president and CEO of Sony on February 2012. He was elected to the Board during the annual stock holders meeting on June 2012.

After having losses for four straight years it was very clear that Hirai’s job was to fix Sony. One of the main moves he promised was to return the company to profitability by cutting 10,000 jobs and focusing on video games, cameras, and smartphones.

So far Hirai has managed to return Sony back to profitability.  This was achieved in part due to a weaker yen and the sale of investments and office buildings. There is still a long way to go and while Hirai had earlier mentioned that the entertainment business was not for sale, a portion of it now looks to be for sale in order to raise cash.

Hirai has a tough job ahead but who said a CEO’s job was ever easy?