Toyota Motor Corporation’s charismatic President and CEO, Akio Toyoda, has been named 2021 World Car Person of the Year by the World Car Awards jury panel.

Toyoda-san is the grandson of the founder of Toyota Motors and has been president since 2009. As an avid auto racing fan and driver himself, Toyoda-san has promoted sports models like the Lexus IS-F and LF-A races. He has participated as a driver at events like the 2009 24 Nurburgring race under the pseudonym Morizo Kinoshita. He’s also a big supporter of the Toyota Supra.

In 2020, under his leadership, Toyota remained profitable, despite COVID-19, thus protecting jobs worldwide. 

Toyoda-san said after being told of his win, “on behalf of all 360,000 Toyota Team members around the world, thank you for this tremendous honour”.

“If you don’t mind, however, I would like to change this award from car “person” of the year, to car “people” of the year… because it’s the collective effort of all our global employees, retailers and suppliers that has truly made Toyota what it is today! And I for one, couldn’t be a luckier… or a more grateful CEO.”

There were five finalists for this prestigious award that was created in 2018 to acknowledge and celebrate an individual who has made a significant contribution to the global automotive industry during the period January 1 to December 31, 2020. That contribution could include a significant impact to their brand or company or a significant safety, engineering, design or technical advancement.

In addition to the winner, the top five finalists were, in alphabetical order: Pratap Bose, Vice-President, Global Design, Tata Motors; Euisun Chung, Chairman, Hyundai Motor Group; Luc Donckerwolke, Chief Creative Officer, Hyundai Motor Group; and Tomiko Takeuchi, Program Manager, MX-30, Mazda Motor Corporation.

Previous World Car Person of the Year recipients were; Carlos Tavares, CEO of PSA Group (2020), the late Sergio Marchionne, CEO, FCA; Chairman, CNH Industrial; and Chairman and CEO, Ferrari (2019) and Håkan Samuelsson, President and CEO, Volvo Car Group (2018).

Toyoda-san also said, “At Toyota we are very fortunate that we were able to protect the employment of our team members during Covid and to continue our work to meet the future challenges of our industry.”

Of interest was an interview with Toyoda-san when Covid closed down Japan last year and he lived by himself at the company executive training facility in Aichi Prefecture.

“This has been a difficult period in the history of the world, but it has also reminded us that people are what matters most… and if we at Toyota, can contribute some measure of happiness to their lives, it will be my never-ending goal to do just that,” said Toyoda-san.

The World Car Person of the Year award is just one of six awards handed out annually by the World Car Awards. The awards were inaugurated in 2003, and officially launched in January 2004, to reflect the reality of the global marketplace, as well as to recognise, reward and inspire excellence, leadership and innovation in a rapidly changing automotive industry.