Jim Press to be named Toyota Director

asahi.com : Toyota to name first foreign director

Congratulations to Jim Press:

Toyota Motor Corp., seeking to add an international flavor to its management, will appoint a foreign national to its board of directors for the first time, sources said Tuesday.

Japan’s largest automaker will name James Press, the American president of Toyota’s subsidiary in charge of North American operations, senior managing director, the sources said.

It harkens back to a year ago, when a couple of us (myself included) got into it with Bill Waddell about his characterization that Toyota was “racist” for having a board that was 100% Japanese. Bill isn’t blogging actively anymore to be able to defend himself, but maybe he’ll pop up and say something.

Confirmed today by the Detroit Free Press.

About LeanBlog.org: Mark Graban is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “lean healthcare” methodology. Mark is author of the Shingo Award-winning book Lean Hospitals and the upcoming book Healthcare Kaizen. He is also the Chief Improvement Officer for the technology startup KaiNexus.