Word: ohga
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Sony didn't need a techno-whiz, it needed a global manager who could master the ever increasing complexity of the digital marketplace. "Right now, you don't need to be an engineer," says Ohga. "You have to have a nose, and if you don't, you can't run a company like Sony...
Sony co-founder Akio Morita and then-president Norio Ohga knew in the 1980s that the digital revolution was coming. In fact, with Philips Electronics, Sony created the audio CD. They talked about the revolution. And they set their engineers to work on digital products: audio and video recorders, televisions and broadcasting equipment. Still, the company's great innovators were backwinded by their own ingenuity. In the late 1980s, when Japan was riding high, Morita, who co-authored a book titled The Japan That Can Say No, began to spend as much time criticizing American management practices...
...Tokyo was concerned, Sony America president Michael P. Schulhof had come to personify a chaos and excess that threatened to drag the company down. A protege of Morita's and Ohga's, Schulhof was a 20-year Sony veteran, a physicist who in his early years as Sony America chief had been competent enough in overseeing its lucrative electronics and music businesses. The company's disastrous foray into Hollywood, however, "changed Mickey," as one Tokyo-based Sony director puts it. Schulhof's lavish spending to remodel Sony's Madison Avenue headquarters had already drawn grumbles in Tokyo. The studio...
...ouster is the most dramatic move so far by Idei, a former marketing executive who was Ohga's surprise pick in April as president and heir apparent. In the past few months on the board, Idei persuaded Ohga, who has always been partial to Schulhof, that it was time for his protege to go. Like Morita and Ohga, Idei is a cosmopolitan blend of East and West. He speaks fluent English and French, loves gadgets and rock 'n' roll, and favors stylish Italian attire. A high-energy executive who has trouble sitting still, Idei navigates Tokyo streets in a Jaguar...
Schulhof, a physicist with a Ph.D. from Brandeis University, rose through the technical ranks of Sony's U.S. operations, where he caught the eye of Morita. "From the beginning, Mr. Morita and Mr. Ohga took a liking to me," Schulhof proudly recalls. For 20 years "there was a chemistry that worked. I talked to Mr. Ohga at least once a day and Mr. Morita once every three days. We operated in a collegial fashion. There was almost nothing in writing...