On April 26, Tatsumi Kimishima, the president of Nintendo since the passing of former president Satoru Iwata in July 2015, revealed that he was stepping down from the company in June.
On April 26, Tatsumi Kimishima, the president of Nintendo since the passing of former president Satoru Iwata in July 2015, revealed that he was stepping down from the company in June.
Kimishima will be replaced by Shuntaro Furukawa, who will need to build on his predecessor’s success over the past three years. Kimishima led Nintendo into a new golden age with the release of the Nintendo Switch, which has sold over 17 million units worldwide since launching early last year.
But who is Furukawa? And what will he bring to Nintendo as the head of one of the world’s largest video game companies? To answer these questions, we need to start at the beginning.
Furukawa was born in 1972 in Japan and joined Nintendo in 1994, working mainly on the corporate sides of things for the majority of his career. He has also been the outside director of the Pokémon Company since 2012.
During his tenure at Nintendo, Furukawa has had a multitude of roles throughout the company ranging from managing executive director, supervisor of corporate analysis and administration divisions, and director of Nintendo. Nikkei also reported that Furukawa was involved with the Switch’s sales and marketing plans, as well as working in Europe for 10 years.
His work in Europe made him fluent in English, which is a skill that Kimishima lacked, according to Bloomberg. Furukawa’s links with Europe could also help bridge the gap between Nintendo’s main headquarters and its western subsidiaries, bringing a bigger, better, and united Nintendo for the next few years.
All of this experience in management will be vital in his role as president in June. After holding many different roles in the company, Furukawa will have a broader idea of how everything works, and he can use this experience to better Nintendo as a whole.
