Retirement of Chief Corporate Advisor Yotaro Kobayashi

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TOKYO, March 5, 2009 – Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. announced today that its Chief Corporate Advisor Yotaro Kobayashi will retire as of March 31, 2009.

Born in London on April 25, 1933, Yotaro Kobayashi graduated with a BA from the Faculty of Economics at Keio University in 1956, and earned his MBA at Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania. In 1958, he joined Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. (now FUJIFILM Corporation), and transferred to Fuji Xerox in 1963. After assuming general manager of planning as well as board director and executive general manager of sales, he was named president and CEO in 1978 at the age of 44. In 1992, he took on the role of chairman and CEO, and served as chairman of the board from 2004, followed by chief corporate advisor from 2006. He is currently 75 years of age.

Kobayashi currently holds several other positions in addition to his duties at Fuji Xerox. He is a member, World Premier International Research Center Initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; lifetime trustee of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives; chairman of the Trilateral Commission’s Pacific Asian Group; chairman of the Aspen Institute Japan; chairman of the board of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum; a member of the Board of Trustees at Keio University; chairman of the International University of Japan; and member of the board of directors at Sony Corporation, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation as well as Callaway Golf Company.

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Message from the outgoing Chief Corporate Advisor

In leaving the post of the Chief Corporate Advisor for Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd., I am renewing for hundred times the feeling that the fate of a company rests on its people after all.

Being a big-headed MBA holder transferred from one of Japan's leading companies Fuji Photo Film in 1963, I was initially appalled to see the state of Fuji Xerox. Little did I know that I was to witness the growth of less-than-impressive employees as the company underwent a series of challenges, opportunities and good fortunes in the ensuing years, such as the Nixon Shock, Oil Crises, TQC introduction and nationwide establishment of sales joint ventures. Throughout this journey I have been blessed with support from demanding yet warm-hearted customers, and buoyed by the tide of economic and business internationalization and the arrival of the information society. My sincerest gratitude goes out to all the people, both inside and outside the company, who have helped bring Fuji Xerox to what it is today, and have extended tremendous personal support to me during my time at Fuji Xerox. I would also like to thank my family.

March 5, 2009

Yotaro Kobayashi,
Chief Corporate Advisor, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

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Biography

Yotaro Kobayashi

Chief Corporate Advisor, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

Born in London on April 25, 1933, Kobayashi graduated with a BA from the Faculty of Economics at Keio University in 1956, and earned his MBA at Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania. In 1958, he joined Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. (now FUJIFILM Corporation) and transferred to Fuji Xerox in 1963. After assuming general manager of planning as well as board director and executive general manager of sales, he became president and CEO in 1978 at the age of 44. In 1992, he took on the role of chairman and CEO, and served as chairman of the board from 2004, followed by chief corporate advisor from 2006. He is currently 75 years of age.

During his time as general manager of planning, Kobayashi expanded Fuji Xerox’s sales territory into Southeast Asia. As executive general manager of sales, he developed the groundbreaking “Beautiful Campaign--From Hustle to Beautiful” in Japan in 1970. Upon becoming deputy president in 1976, he advanced a companywide Total Quality Control (TQC) initiative known as New Xerox (NX) Movement. He was appointed president and CEO in January 1978.

From 1979, Kobayashi embarked on a campaign to bolster and expand Fuji Xerox’s domestic sales networks, establishing sales companies under joint ventures with prominent firms in various regions of Japan. The success of his TQC initiatives was recognized in 1980 when Fuji Xerox was awarded The Deming Application Prize. In the same year Kobayashi established corporate research center, completing the process of making Fuji Xerox, a company born in 1962 selling U.S.-manufactured Xerox copy machines, into a business entity encompassing all stages of research, development, manufacturing and marketing. Kobayashi went on to improve the company’s performance throughout the 1980s, establishing new sales and key parts manufacturing arms as well as affiliates in such areas as information systems, education and logistics. He also became a director of the board, Xerox Corporation in the United States in 1987, and played a major role in the remarkable rise of Fuji Xerox’s stature within the global Xerox Group.

Incorporating opinions from employees as a means to combat the growing uniformity of established TQC initiatives, Kobayashi launched an internal campaign in 1988 titled “New Work Way,” which emphasizes ideas generated at the individual level. Under the campaign, he worked hard to balance the interests of his company with those of the wider community and individual employees, launching Japan’s first social-service leave program in 1990, and moving ahead of other Japanese companies to introduce programs for family care leave, parenting leave, as well as allowing married employees to continue using their original family names in the workplace.

The 1990s saw Kobayashi expand Fuji Xerox’s operations in the Asia-Pacific region and start new printer and production businesses. Upon becoming chairman and CEO in 1992, he formulated the “Good Company Concept,” advocating a corporate commitment to achieving balance among economic, social and human orientations to create a company that is “strong, kind and interesting.” In 1999, he instituted reforms to the company’s board of directors, establishing Finance Committee and Executive Nomination & Compensation Committee answering to the Board, and also introduced the corporate officer system. By the March 2004 account settlement period, Kobayashi had grown Fuji Xerox into a trillion-yen corporate operation.

Kobayashi has also been active outside Fuji Xerox. In 1986, he was appointed chairman of the Committee of Foreign-Affiliated Corporations, Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (now Japan Business Federation or Nippon Keidanren). During the 1990s, he served on the Japanese Government’s Third Provisional Council for the Promotion of Administrative Reform, as chairman of the Japan-U.S. Business Council, and in other posts, before assuming the role of chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (JACE) in April 1999. This was the first time that a head of a foreign-affiliated enterprise had been chosen to lead one of Japan’s four top economic organizations. In the press conference held to announce this appointment, Kobayashi presented a manifesto titled “Beyond the ‘Manifesto for a Market-Oriented Economy’: Four Aspects of Governance for the Next Era.” Giving voice to the idea that full realization of the capitalist market system is a key issue at that point in time rather than an ultimate goal, this manifesto proposed initiatives across the four fields of corporate governance, social governance aimed to create a society where citizens play the leading role, global governance founded in a reassessment of the global political economy, and human governance incorporating educational challenges.
During his term as JACE chairman, Kobayashi served as co-chair at the World Economic Forum, or Davos Forum, in 2002, held in New York the year after the September 11 terrorist attacks. In 2003, he delivered the 15th Corporate White Paper entitled “‘Market Evolution’ and CSR Management – Toward Building Trust and Creating Sustainable Stakeholder Value.” Addressing the core theme of corporate social responsibility (CSR), this white paper proposed a set of corporate assessment criteria for managers to evaluate their own companies’ initiatives and outcomes in developing corporate governance systems for practicing and sustaining CSR, as well as to set and implement objectives for the future. In April 2003, Kobayashi resigned from the post of JACE chairman and is now a lifetime trustee. He subsequently became involved in the New 21st Century Committee for Japan-China Friendship, which works for the stable advancement and strengthening of friendship and cooperation between Japan and China in the 21st century, bringing together experts from both countries to examine a broad range of perspectives in such fields as politics, economics, culture, science and technology to present opinions and reports to both governments. Kobayashi served as co-chairman of the Committee from December 2003 to December 2008.

He was also heavily involved in the establishment of the Aspen Institute Japan and has been the Institute’s chairman from its opening in 1998 right through to the present day. The mission of this Institute is to contribute to the cultivation of leadership abilities: it provides a forum for participants to revisit their core ideals and values, as well as develop visions for the future so that they can keep nurturing a broad-ranging perspective on society and human existence unclouded by the inevitable pursuit of specialization.

Kobayashi also holds various positions. He is a member of World Premier International Research Center Initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; chairman of the Trilateral Commission’s Pacific Asian Group; chairman of the board of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum; a member of the Board of Trustees at Keio University; chairman of the International University of Japan; and member of the board of directors at Sony Corporation, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation as well as Callaway Golf Company.

As of March 5, 2009　

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