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ACE: Top exec finalists stood apart from crowded field
3/20/2012 2:11 PM EDT
At Renesas Electronics, Akao demonstrates quiet resilience
There wasn't another semiconductor industry chief—nor many industry chiefs in general—who faced such an onslaught of major crises over a two-year span. A lesser boss would have cracked. But the only crack that showed on Yasushi Akao was his smile.
After his appointment to the top post at Renesas Electronics Corp. in 2010, Akao's responsibility was to map out, create and execute the most effective outcome for the biggest merger of chip companies in Japan's history: the oil-and-water mixture of Renesas Technology with NEC Electronics.
Then, while the reorganizational changes barely had begun to unfold, Renesas Electronics became one of the companies hit hardest by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.
The earthquake and tsunami caused devastating damage to the company's facilities, triggering a shortage of Renesas' microcontrollers and almost bringing the global auto industry to its knees. International pressure fell on Akao and his team to figure out how to repair the company's fabs in Japan—ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, his team had to quickly devise a strategy to transfer some of its production offshore to fill supply-chain gaps.
Cool-headed, meticulous and methodical, Akao put the Renesas fabs back online faster than anyone expected. More significant, he used the downtime as an opportunity to institute new principles of fairness, integrity and transparency in the way Renesas deals with its customers.
Akao, 56, is said to have made a conscious effort, since the day after the quake, to play no favorites. Despite understandable nationalist pressures, he banned preferential treatment for Japanese customers. Instead, the Japanese semiconductor company allocated parts based on pre-earthquake demand and forecasts among all its customers—including its smallest—scattered throughout North America, Europe, China and Asia. Keeping the trust of customers abroad was Akao's priority.
Akao also used the crisis to change Renesas' conversation with its customers and partners. Under new guidelines, Renesas hopes to restore production lines at any given fab, no matter what happens, "within one month," said Akao. "That's our end game." However, much of the fab network won't function properly if Renesas and its customers fail to disclose and share information on specifics such as available capacity at fabs, product roadmaps and qualification processes. Further, they need to agree on how best to share the cost of building in such redundancies. In many ways, Akao was the semiconductor industry's 2011 executive of the year for his relentless efforts to get his company, his industry and his nation back on their feet.
-- Junko Yoshida
After his appointment to the top post at Renesas Electronics Corp. in 2010, Akao's responsibility was to map out, create and execute the most effective outcome for the biggest merger of chip companies in Japan's history: the oil-and-water mixture of Renesas Technology with NEC Electronics.
Then, while the reorganizational changes barely had begun to unfold, Renesas Electronics became one of the companies hit hardest by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.
The earthquake and tsunami caused devastating damage to the company's facilities, triggering a shortage of Renesas' microcontrollers and almost bringing the global auto industry to its knees. International pressure fell on Akao and his team to figure out how to repair the company's fabs in Japan—ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, his team had to quickly devise a strategy to transfer some of its production offshore to fill supply-chain gaps.
Cool-headed, meticulous and methodical, Akao put the Renesas fabs back online faster than anyone expected. More significant, he used the downtime as an opportunity to institute new principles of fairness, integrity and transparency in the way Renesas deals with its customers.
Akao, 56, is said to have made a conscious effort, since the day after the quake, to play no favorites. Despite understandable nationalist pressures, he banned preferential treatment for Japanese customers. Instead, the Japanese semiconductor company allocated parts based on pre-earthquake demand and forecasts among all its customers—including its smallest—scattered throughout North America, Europe, China and Asia. Keeping the trust of customers abroad was Akao's priority.
Akao also used the crisis to change Renesas' conversation with its customers and partners. Under new guidelines, Renesas hopes to restore production lines at any given fab, no matter what happens, "within one month," said Akao. "That's our end game." However, much of the fab network won't function properly if Renesas and its customers fail to disclose and share information on specifics such as available capacity at fabs, product roadmaps and qualification processes. Further, they need to agree on how best to share the cost of building in such redundancies. In many ways, Akao was the semiconductor industry's 2011 executive of the year for his relentless efforts to get his company, his industry and his nation back on their feet.
-- Junko Yoshida
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Luis Sanchez
3/20/2012 10:15 PM EDT
I like to read about the persons behind the companies and how they influence their success.
Many times the difficult and negative events shake things up to either improve them or remove the weak. "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". That is what happened with Renesas and Cadence. And really impressive that move of cutting paychecks to survive in the case of Juki Automation Systems. An the winner is... ?
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junko.yoshida
3/21/2012 9:56 AM EDT
You're right. You should do more stories about what's behind all the news -- especially when it comes to hard decisions these top executives need to make.
As for the winner of the Executive of the Year, stay tuned. It will be announced next Tuesday evening in San Jose, Calif.
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elctrnx_lyf
3/21/2012 2:12 AM EDT
My choice would be the chief of Juki.
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dylan.mcgrath
3/22/2012 1:19 PM EDT
Any one of this executives would make for a deserving winner of the award. But for me, Akao may well be the favorite, simply because of the mess Renesas was left with after the Japan quake. To get the fabs back up and running ahead of schedule required a very impressive company-wide effort, even while Japan as a country was still reeling from the disaster. That takes inspiring leadership.
I also think that the impressive turnaround of Cadence under Lip-Bu Tan deserves a lot of consideration.
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sharps_eng
3/30/2012 12:56 PM EDT
I would think the skill comes from managing the multi-cultural environment of these global businesses, some more so than others, internally but they all have global markets and need to read those correctly to plan and take risks with the future direction of plant and product investments.
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