THE JAPAN NEWS



 

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. said Thursday that it will promote Senior Executive Vice President Akira Shimada to the post of president, effective June 24.

Shimada, 64, will replace Jun Sawada, 66, who will become chairman with the right to represent the holding company.

The appointments of new leaders at regional units NTT East Corp. and NTT West Corp. were also announced.

NTT Senior Executive Vice President Naoki Shibutani, 59, will become president of NTT East.

Meanwhile, Masaaki Moribayashi, a 60-year-old senior official at NTT Ltd., which manages the NTT group’s global communications operations, will become president of NTT West.

It will be the first change of the president in four years for each of the holding company and the two regional arms.

At a press conference Thursday, Shimada said he “will create a new NTT group capable of transforming itself dynamically.”

Sawada, who has led the large-scale reorganization of the group, including the conversion of mobile phone arm NTT Docomo Inc. into a wholly owned subsidiary, will support Shimada in reforming the group.

Also on Thursday, NTT said its consolidated net profit for the year that ended in March rose 28.9 pct from the previous year to ¥1,181,083 million, exceeding ¥1 trillion for the first time.

The result stemmed from robust earnings at system developer NTT Data Corp. backed by rising demand from companies working on digitalization and from the full ownership acquisition of NTT Docomo.