Director, Representative Executive Officer, Executive Chairperson and ESG Officer, Olympus
Japan Ahead: Olympus CEO Yasuo Takeuchi
Olympus CEO Yasuo Takeuchi told Bloomberg that the involvement of U.S. hedge fund ValueAct Capital Management is spurring ...
Transcript (8 segments)
I
Interviewer0:00
How has Russia's attack on Ukraine impacted your company's business? And could you tell us about the long-term and short-term impact as far as our business in Ukraine and Russia is concerned?
Y
Yasuo Takeuchi0:14
First of all, we are and will continue providing our service to those areas, because the people in those areas, regardless of the place, have deserved to receive any type of medical and surgical support that we can provide to them.
I
Interviewer0:33
Since you took over the top management role three years have passed, and you have announced that you want to make Olympus into a global leading medtech company. Since then you have sold the camera business and also spun off the scientific solution business this April. I wonder how this move has helped you achieve the goal.
Y
Yasuo Takeuchi0:57
In 2019, when we were discussing establishing a corporate strategy, my theme was again how to maximize our corporate value. So therefore, how to change this company in one direction as one team. We had very separate goals for the microscope area, scientific solutions area, consumer camera area, and medical and endoscopy area. Those cultures are quite different because there was no business synergy or business relations, but the technologies are very much from the same foundation and coming from the original place. Competency. And how to maximize the corporate value again, changing the culture is essence. To focus on the medical business, we are a technology-oriented company, but now we have to become more business-oriented, more like a broader sense of customer-centric company for medical purposes.
I
Interviewer2:00
You also have two members accepted from ValueAct, an activist fund, on your board. I wonder whether that addition has helped you transform your company's culture.
Y
Yasuo Takeuchi2:20
Yes. One of my specific actions that I have taken is to increase diversity. This company has a very successful story again focusing on technology enhancement, but now going into the business-oriented approach. There are a lot of things we have to innovate because of the nature of the technology company. I think we are very much a self-promoted culture. As you may imagine, very proud of our technology, very proud of our product, very proud of our service, but we have to look more broadly. One of the first things I did was change the management team. When I took over as CEO three years ago, the global management team — about 30 positions — was only 10% non-Japanese. Now 50% is non-Japanese. We as an executive team are committed to changing this company to a global medical technology company, and that requires a lot of change, eventually a change in culture. Any type of diversified opinion and viewpoint are welcome. So we were in that situation, and that may be one of the big reasons why we are happy working with many people, including Rob Hale from ValueAct.
I
Interviewer4:03
You have announced that you are going to spin off the scientific solution business starting this April. When you made this announcement, you also talked about possible sale of the business. I wonder whether any parties have already approached you towards a sale. Has anyone shown interest in the business?
Y
Yasuo Takeuchi4:26
Well, the reason we made that announcement — not only that we are going to carve out the scientific solution business completely from the medical business, totally separate, and set up a totally separate entity — but not limited to that. We may think, for further enhancement and diversity of the business, that should be a natural course of consideration. But besides that specific case, we are very much caring to be transparent. That should be one of the required behaviors for a global company. We communicate very openly in a transparent way. So once we decide to carve out the company, the purpose again is to maximize corporate value. Olympus is a very self-promoted company, but especially we have to become a global medical technology company. We need to enhance speed, more speed; we need to enhance product portfolio to really compete in the global market with global competitors.