Greetings and Goals from the President and COO

Partnering with Stakeholders to Contribute to an Affluent Society

It is a great honor to become the president of a company that was founded in 1971 and now has approximately 13,000 employees worldwide. I am humbled by the heavy responsibility.

In recent years, we have experienced several social changes such as a persistent threat of infectious diseases like COVID-19, increasing geopolitical risks in a G-Zero world (where there is an absence of nations providing global leadership), worsening global warming, and the spread of technologies such as robots and AI that replace human labor. The challenges are intricately intertwined and are causing large waves of change in daily life and business. In the midst of all this, I believe that my role is to maintain a medium- to long-term perspective and work rapidly to create an executive foundation that allows the THK Group to grow sustainably.

The name THK is an acronym of the things we promise to our customers: Toughness (the delivery of tough and durable products), High Quality (the delivery of products of the best quality in the world), and Knowhow (contributions to the development of new expertise). These core values are our brand, and every single employee holds them dearly. THK has made continual progress to this point as a unified company guided by the corporate philosophy of providing innovative products to the world and generating new trends to contribute to the creation of an affluent society. I would like to cherish and maintain the lessons learned and values instilled in THK over the past 50 years of operation. The first of these is to value our employees. THK’s most important assets are its employees, a fact reflected in our long-established custom of referring to them as “human assets.” In addition to maintaining an environment where people can work with enthusiasm, we will also stay focused on providing educational opportunities and new experiences to our employees so that they can provide value to the world. The second principle is to value our customers and business partners. THK is the company that it is today because of the trust that we have earned from our customers and business partners in the course of offering value to society. I will strive to deepen this trust for the sake of co-creation with these partners. The third thing is to value innovation. THK’s history is a story of creating things that do not yet exist in the world, of realizing greater potential, and of repeated trial and error. We have not simply made what our customers asked for or used what someone else told us to. Our work doesn’t end once we’ve created something new. Innovation means seeing that new thing adopted by society, and that is what we will ake sure to achieve. Fourth, we value society and our shareholders. THK’s business objective is to contribute to the creation of an affluent society, and aiding in the achievement of the SDGs is one part of this. To do so, it is necessary for each and every employee to bring their individual talents to the table and to combine their strengths with others’. At the same time, the understanding and support of our shareholders, who are also our partners, is extremely important as well. I will pay close attention to the words of our shareholders, including their exhortations and encouragement, in promoting our business activities.

I am aware that a major challenge for us is determining how to make use of THK’s values according to how the times and our environment change. Even as our environment changes drastically, I will make sure that we see corporate value increase as a result of our transformation into a manufacturing and innovative services company, and that we sustainably provide returns to our stakeholders. It is my mission to thoroughly strengthen the parts of our business foundation that require it and to bravely change things that need to be changed.

Thank you all for your continued support.