George Fukaya Elected DENSO President
Date: 2003-04-18

BATTLE CREEK—Koichi “George” Fukaya, president of DMMI from 1995-1998, will become the new president and CEO of DENSO Corporation upon his formal election in June at the annual shareholders meeting, according to an announcement made Thursday in Nagoya, Japan.

In his role as the ninth president of DENSO Corporation, Fukaya will set company objectives and focus on all aspects of corporate, financial and manufacturing areas as well as strengthen relationships with customers, suppliers, shareholders and employees.

“I am both honored and determined to lead DENSO to further success as we face the many challenges ahead of us in this century’s automotive supplier industry. I am dedicated to strengthening the company’s global network to provide high quality products at competitive costs with the support of our associates worldwide,” Fukaya says. “I believe it will be an essential part of my job as president to ensure company transparency with customers, suppliers, shareholders, employees and society.”

Retiring DENSO President and CEO Hiromu Okabe says; “Fukaya is the type of leader who sees many sides to every issue and makes decisions quickly. His knowledge of production engineering, product group management and his international leadership experience made him my top choice to lead DENSO. And his leadership experience at DMMI showed that he could inspire DENSO associates throughout the world.” Okabe, who has been corporation president since 1996, will become Vice Chairman of the DENSO Corporation Board of Directors.

During his tenure in Battle Creek, Fukaya, DMMI’s fourth president, oversaw the acquisition of new business, record sales, numerous new product introductions and successful efforts to achieve the QS-9000 quality standard and the ISO-14001 environmental standard. He also directed many internal improvements and worked to increase DMMI’s involvement in the community. While at DMMI, he was appointed to the DENSO Board of Directors.

Upon leaving DMMI, Fukaya became Managing Director for Thermal Systems, DENSO’s largest product group. Since June 2002, he has been Senior Managing Director of DENSO’s Production Promotion Center, responsible for strategic planning and implementation of production technologies for all manufacturing.

Since joining DENSO in 1966, Fukaya has served as general manager of the Production Engineering and the Production Engineering Research & Development departments.

DENSO CORPORATION, headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan is a leading global supplier of advanced technology, systems and components. Worldwide, the company employs 87,000 people in 31 countries, including Japan. Consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2002 totaled US$18.1 billion* (2,401.1 billion yen or 20.7 billion Euros). DENSO common stock is traded on the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya stock exchanges. In North America, DENSO employs 14,000 people at 25 companies with consolidated sales for the above fiscal year totaling US$4.7 billion.

*Figures for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2002 include the effect of an irregular 15-month reporting period, due to 45 overseas subsidiaries and overseas affiliates changing their year-ends to March 31 from December 31.

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