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Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) has announced the appointment of Hiroshi Yamamoto to a newly created position, Corporate Digitization Chief Technology Officer. An expert in cyber-physical systems, developing solutions for smart factories and architecture designs, Mr. Yamamoto will oversee development of technology related to Toshiba Group’s digital transformation.

Through a policy of digital transformation, Toshiba Group is promoting a business model of new business creation grounded in overcoming challenges faced by its customer companies in various business sectors. As it channels resources into this, Toshiba is also recruiting highly capable personnel from outside the Group, who can contribute to accelerating the transformation and promote reinforcement of human resources and organizational structure.

Mr. Yamamoto, who will take the reins of his new position on July 1, is a distinguished pioneer in fields related to IoT, including big data processing, service-oriented architecture^*1, high performance transactions^*2, and deep learning for image processing. At Toshiba, his responsibilities will include spurring execution of the company’s digital transformation strategy; promoting further refinement of Toshiba’s SPINEX™ IoT architecture and its related technologies; expansion of digital assets, all through cooperation with managers at key group companies responsible for advancing the Group’s digital strategy at key group companies.

Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Yamamoto said: “Toshiba Group has over 140 years of cumulative experience in social infrastructure and manufacturing. Drawing on this, Toshiba has developed the SPINEX™ IoT architecture and AI technologies, demonstrating industry-leading capabilities and know-how. I am excited to join Toshiba, and looking forward to helping to integrate its unparalleled physical technology and digital technology into cyber-physical systems that solve problems for customers in different business domains.”

In creating the “Toshiba Next Plan,” the five-year transformation plan that it intends to roll out at the end of this calendar year, Toshiba aims to transition to a recurring business model that realizes consistently profitable results, by shifting to provision of services that maximize customer value by combining its digital technologies, particularly in AI and IoT, with its business technologies and strengths. The company will continue to hire highly talented people who can contribute to advancing this transformation.

On April 1, 2018, Toshiba appointed a Chief Digital Officer to lead a company-wide strategy of growth through digital transformation and established the Digital Transformation Strategy Acceleration Division. On April 2, 2018, Toshiba Digital & Consulting Corporation, was established to provide one-stop services from consulting to value creation.

Within this organizational structure, Toshiba Group will strengthen human resources working in digital transformation by hiring competent people, and advance the transition to a recurring business model that is consistently profitable. 

■ Career of Mr. Yamamoto before Joining Toshiba
April 1982:           Joined a Japanese electronics company. Developed embedded firmware.
October 1988:      Joined IBM Japan. Developed micro code for real time control, such as DC
　　　　　　　　servo-motor control, and communication control, at Yamato Development Laboratory.
April 1993:           Initiated first-of-a-kind distributed object and distributed computing adaptation.
April 2008:           Appointed as a Distinguished Engineer by IBM Corporation.
October 2013:     Appointed as a Global Electronics Industry CTO by IBM Corporation. 

Note:

[1]

Service oriented architecture sees software’s function as a service, a series of components that can be linked together to construct system.

[2]

In high performance transactions, multiple thousands of transactions are processed every second. Requires in-memory technology and advanced recovery technology.