TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp on Friday said executive vice president and power business chief Katsuya Nakanishi will become the trading house’s new president and chief executive officer, effective April 1, 2022.
Current president Takehiko Kakiuchi will become chairman.
Nakanishi, 61, currently runs the firm’s power solution group and was involved in its 2019 acquisition of Eneco, one of the Netherlands’ largest power companies.
The move comes as Mitsubishi, which holds stakes in metals and energy assets including fossil fuels, looks to adjust its portfolio to meet growing global trend toward decarbonisation.
In October, Mitsubishi announced it would aim to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 versus 2020 levels and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. It plans to invest 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) by 2030 in alternative energies such as renewables and hydrogen.
“We have set out key issues for the future and we now need to make them happen,” Nakanishi, who led the creation of those plans, told reporters.
“As president, I must take the lead in steadily promoting the concrete measures,” he said.
The investment fund will be used mainly to increase renewable energy at home and abroad, and to create supply chains of next-generation fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia while maintaining its responsibility to provide a stable supply of natural gas, he said.
Mitsubishi, which also has a large exposure to mineral resources such as coking coal and copper, plans to expand its copper assets as the metal is expected to benefit from growth in electrification, Nakanishi said.
($1 = 113.5100 yen)
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; editing by Christopher Cushing an Jason Neely)
