Howard Stringer, Sony board chairman, who served as president and CEO from 2005 to 2012, is to retire, he announced.
Stringer, the first non-Japanese executive to run the consumer electronics giant, said he would step down from his position as board chairman at Sony’s annual shareholder meeting in June.
The 71-year-old was speaking Friday at a meeting of the Japan Society in New York.
“A new world is opening up for me … one that allows me to complete my plan to retire from Sony, which I expect to do at the conclusion of my term later this year,” he said. “That will allow me to move forward with new opportunities I’ve been presented with lately.”
Stringer was succeeded by Kazuo Hirai, a games and music veteran, who described a huge overhaul of Sony’s business as “urgent”, including thousands of job cuts, after it lost 456.66 billion yen in its last fiscal year to March, the fourth year in the red.
Sony has forecast a 20 billion yen net profit in the current year to March.
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