Tadahiro Sekimoto - Corporate Career

Corporate Career

Sekimoto joined NEC, now a globally active Japanese information technologies conglomerate and member of the Sumitomo Group, in 1948. He started his career at the company's Central Research Laboratories, where he advanced to chief of basic research in 1965. In August 1965 he was appointed to a two-year assignment at COMSAT in Washington, DC, where he engaged in research on digital transmission technologies used in satellite communications. On his return to NEC in 1967, Sekimoto was appointed to manage the company's Communications Research Laboratory. He rose to general manager of NEC's Transmission Division in 1972 and, in 1974, was elected to the NEC board of directors. He was appointed senior vice president in 1977 and executive vice president with portfolio for sales in Japan in 1978. In this position, he enhanced the company's sales operations in the Japanese domestic market by creating structures conducive to marketing mass-produced electronics products. In 1980, Sekimoto was appointed president of NEC and launched NEC's C&C concept for integrating computers and communications, which resulted in significant sales increases. Finally, Sekimoto served as chairman of the board from 1994 to 1998, when he resigned from the post (as well as from his chairmanship of the Keidanren Board of Councilors) to apologize for NEC's role in a scandal involving the Japan Defense Agency, Japan's de facto defence ministry .