During a Board of Directors (or in Nintendo’s case, would that be a Board of Fellows?) meeting on Thursday, Nintendo announced that current President Tatsumi Kirishima will be stepping down as of June 28. Kirishima will remain with Nintendo in his new role as Executive Advisor. Kirishima was appointed to the President role in September 2015 following the death of former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata.
It is currently planned for Shuntaro Furukawa to take the position of Representative Director and President which are the two titles currently held by Kirishima. Furukawa has been with Nintendo since 1994 and worked on the corporate side of things for the majority of his time there. He also serves as the Outside Director of The Pokémon Company and has done so since May of 2012. Furukawa is also 46, which is 22 years younger than Kirishima which many see this as a generational shift for Nintendo.
“The key thing here is that management is getting younger,” said Satoshi Kurihara, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute. “They will have to execute the Switch’s growth plan, so in that sense, this is a new start.”
Furukawa’s full list of current titles includes Director; Managing Executive Officer; General Manager, Corporate Planning Department; Supervisor of Corporate Analysis & Administration Division; In charge of Global Marketing Department. Needless to say, he plays a role or two with the company.
With the Nintendo Switch performing exceptionally well with 17.79 million units sold worldwide (and yes, we know about the Tegra issue), the SNES Classic having 5.28 million units sold worldwide and boasting three console titles with 8 million sales apiece worldwide (Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe), this is a prime time for a new President to come in and take the reigns.
