Toyota president steps down amid lawsuit
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-09 16:17
The president and CEO of Toyota Motor North America,
accused last week in a sexual harassment lawsuit, is leaving the post, the
automaker said Tuesday. To replace him, Toyota named the first American
president of its U.S. subsidiary.
Sayaka Kobayashi, an employee of Toyota Motor
North America, appears in New York's Central Park in this 2006 photo
provided by her lawyer. Kobayashi has filed a lawsuit accusing the
company's president and chief executive officer, Hideaki Otaka, of
unwanted sexual advances toward her when she worked as his personal
assistant. [AP] |
Hideaki Otaka, 65, who had been scheduled to leave his post in June, has
voluntarily left earlier. He said his staying on went against the company's
interests, but said he was innocent of the charges.
Jim Press, now president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, Toyota's U.S. sales unit,
will replace Otaka as president.
Otaka was accused in a $190 million sexual harassment lawsuit filed last week
in New York. In the lawsuit, Sayaka Kobayashi accused him of harassing her when
she worked as his personal assistant, making repeated unwanted sexual advances
after she began working for him last summer. She said the conduct continued
until winter, when she was involuntarily transferred out of the job.
Press, 59, joined Toyota Motor Sales in 1970, and worked in advertising,
customer services, marketing, product planning and distribution. He has served
as president of Toyota Motor Sales since June 2005 and is a managing officer of
Toyota in Japan.
Toyota Motor Corp.'s U.S. unit also named Yuki Funo, 59,
now chairman of Toyota Motor Sales, as the new chairman and chief executive of
Toyota Motor North America, which oversees the company's manufacturing and sales
operations and 31,500 employees in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
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