Greetings. I am Riki Inuzuka and become Chairman of the Toyota Foundation in 2025 following my predecessor Nobuyori Kodaira. As the Foundation celebrated its 50-year anniversary since its inception in 1974, I feel honored to take up this post particularly at a time when it has just started to move forward in the next 50 years. Allow me to express my heartfelt appreciation to you all for giving the Toyota Foundation your generous support and guidance.

After joining Toyota Motor Corp. in 1982, I worked in such business domains as product management, human resources and corporate management, and also had a stint in North America. Then, I became President of Toyota Financial Services Corp. in 2015 and served as President of Central Japan International Airport Co., Ltd. from 2019. Now, I concurrently serve as Chairman of the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra aside from my role at the Toyota Foundation. In addition, I helped launch a non-profit organization called Sustainable Co-Innovation Forum (SCI Forum) in 2019 and have since served as its representative director. Having worked and built my career in both for-profit and non-profit sectors, I have come to realize important commonalities between these two sectors beyond their differences.

The first common characteristic is raison d'etre of organizations. Through my experience of working at Toyota, I have learned that the biggest mission of a company is to resolve social issues. The history of Toyota itself represents the very history of seeking to resolve various issues, including the invention of automatic looms, the launch of a homegrown automotive industry in Japan, and the release and penetration of environmentally-friendly hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles. Needless to say, as profit-making organizations, they have to turn a profit, but they need to do so as a result of dealing with social issues head-on and working hard to resolve them as a united front. They should not get this order of priority wrong. This underlying premise is common to both for-profit and non-profit organizations, including foundations and NPOs.

The second characteristic is the fact that high aspirations and passion are essential for moving an organization and a society forward. During my time at Toyota, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of people who dedicated themselves to working on various issues – solitary death, school absenteeism among children, support for young people, assistance for developing countries, revitalization of local industries, among other activities. I was deeply touched by their commitment and passion. I, for one, believe that for-profit enterprises and non-profit organizations, both of which share the same social purposes, will be increasingly called upon to work together and tackle common challenges in the years to come. What’s more, involving the government in that process is also necessary. I am convinced that such collaboration and co-creation activities will impact society as a whole and steer it in a more positive direction.

It is quite surprising to see how intense and rapid changes in the world have been in recent years. Clearly, the existing social structures can no longer deal with a wave of new forces – digitalization, the evolution of generative AI, demographic and global environmental shifts, climate change, the spread of worldwide pandemics such as the Covid-19, among other changes. While there are various discussions over what the next society will look like, we, the Toyota Foundation, would like to help create and communicate research outcomes and successful examples that can play a key role in building that new society. Toward that end, we are committed to accelerating a cycle in which many people with high aspirations and passion for finding solutions to social issues are willing to apply for and will be given our grants.

As we make steady progress over the next 50 years, your warm support and guidance are greatly appreciated.