WELCOMING THE PRESIDENT TO TME

Posted by Colin Hensley on March 25, 2010 in Quality

We had a pretty extraordinary day on Tuesday. Some of you may have seen the coverage in the media already, our President, Akio Toyoda visited Belgium. He started his flying visit by dropping in at Toyota City, one of the local dealers. While Toyoda-san was there, he talked to the customers who were waiting for their cars to be serviced, or even have the modification made for the recalls. He also went down into the workshop to have a close look at how the small metal shim is being added to the accelerator pedal. I talked to some of the people working there, and they were all very proud to have been the subject of this visit.

Toyoda-san then came to our offices to address all of the members. He gave a resounding speech, where he talked about both the difficult times that we have been through recently and his expectations for the future operations in Europe. <you can read the speech here> There were also words from representatives of the dealers, the manufacturing plants and the employees. It was honestly quite moving to see the great response he received from all of my colleagues who had gathered together.

There was also a chance for a small group of our media to talk to Toyoda-san, and because of this, I needed to brief the President directly on the European media situation. I must say, Toyoda-san is both charming and attentive, listening carefully and making pertinent comments.
While it will still take a few more months until the recall campaign is completed here in Europe, this event really felt like another great step towards the future for our company. In fact, one of the things Toyoda-san said himself during the day was that he felt this was a “fresh start” for Toyota.
I can tell, from first hand experience, President Toyoda really does love cars, and wants to bring that passion for design, manufacturing and marketing of cars back into all parts of our company. I know my colleagues in TME and I are ready to take on the challenge.