Sony Group Corp.
Leadership History
4 leaders · 2005 to present
Hiroki Totoki is the CEO of Sony, in the role since 2025. The first chief executive was Howard Stringer, from 2005.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hiroki Totoki | President and Chief Executive Officer | 2025 | Present | 1 |
| Kenichiro Yoshida | Chairman and former Chief Executive Officer | 2018 | 2025 | 7 |
| Kazuo Hirai | President and Chief Executive Officer | 2012 | 2018 | 6 |
| Howard Stringer | Chairman and Chief Executive Officer | 2005 | 2012 | 7 |
Sony Group Corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, was founded in 1946 and is listed in Tokyo (6758) and New York (SONY). The modern group is organized around Game & Network Services, Music, Pictures, Entertainment, Technology & Services, and Imaging & Sensing Solutions. It sells the PlayStation 5, owns Columbia Pictures and Crunchyroll, runs Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Music Publishing, and supplies CMOS image sensors to phone and camera makers. FY2025 continuing sales were ~$83.6B (JPY 12.48T) with about 94,900 employees. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
Sony makes money from five main businesses. Game & Network Services (~$31.4B (JPY 4.6857T) in FY2025 sales) sells PS5 hardware, first-party and third-party games, PlayStation Plus subscriptions and PlayStation Store transactions; network services alone grew 13.9% to ~$5.11B (JPY 763.1B) in FY2025. Music (~$14.2B (JPY 2.1201T)) earns streaming, physical, licensing and publishing royalties through Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Music Publishing. Imaging & Sensing Solutions (~$14.4B (JPY 2.1515T)) sells CMOS image sensors, mostly to smartphone makers. Pictures earns from theatrical films, TV production, licensing and Crunchyroll subscriptions, while Entertainment, Technology & Services sells TVs, cameras, audio and professional equipment. Financial services were moved to discontinued operations after the 2025 partial spin-off.
President and Chief Executive Officer
2025 – Present
1 year (current)
Totoki leads Sony after years as a senior finance and operations executive. The FY2025 profile under his leadership is centered on continuing operations after the Sony Financial Group partial spin-off, with ~$83.6B (JPY 12.479620T) in continuing sales and ~$9.7B (JPY 1.447507T) in operating income.
Chairman and former Chief Executive Officer
2018 – 2025
7 years
Yoshida led Sony through a major shift toward entertainment, games, music, image sensors, and disciplined capital allocation before handing the CEO role to Hiroki Totoki.
President and Chief Executive Officer
2012 – 2018
6 years
Hirai became chief executive in April 2012 after leading the PlayStation business, and restructured the loss-making electronics units, selling the Vaio PC business and spinning off television operations.
Sony returned to record operating profit in the year to March 2018. Kenichiro Yoshida succeeded him in April 2018.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
2005 – 2012
7 years
Stringer became the first non-Japanese chief executive of Sony in 2005 and tried to bring its electronics and entertainment divisions closer together.
Sony reported repeated losses in televisions during his term. Kazuo Hirai succeeded him in 2012.
Sony's main challenges in 2026 are cost and timing pressure in gaming, sensor concentration, and the usual volatility of entertainment. PlayStation hardware is late in its cycle: PS5 shipments fell to 1.5 million units in the January-March 2026 quarter from 2.8 million a year earlier, memory costs are rising, and Sony has not fixed a PS6 launch date. Bungie has been a costly acquisition, with a ~$805M (JPY 120.1B) impairment booked in FY2025 on top of an earlier write-down and 2024 layoffs. Image sensors depend heavily on flagship smartphone demand, and Sony itself flagged weaker smartphone demand as a risk; a July 28, 2026 earthquake also briefly halted its Kumamoto sensor fab. Pictures revenue is lumpy and fell 13% in the June 2026 quarter. Currency swings between the yen and the dollar move reported earnings, and U.S. tariffs affected costs before Sony booked about $536M (JPY 80B) of expected refunds into its FY2026 forecast.
Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita co-founded Sony. Ibuka served as the technical genius, president (1950–1971), and chairman (1971–1976), focusing entirely on engineering, research, and product design. Akio Morita served as president (1971–1976) and chairman/CEO (1976–1994), spearheading global marketing, international distribution, and corporate diplomacy.
Norio Ohga, a classically trained opera singer who joined Sony after criticizing the acoustic fidelity of its early tape recorders, served as president and CEO from 1982 to 1995. Ohga personally drove the commercialization of the Compact Disc, executed the blockbuster acquisitions of CBS Records and Columbia Pictures, and backed Ken Kutaragi to launch the original PlayStation.
Nobuyuki Idei launched the "Digital Dream Kids" corporate slogan, aiming to connect audio-video electronics with personal computing and the internet. While he oversaw the launch of VAIO computers and the PlayStation 2, his tenure suffered from severe internal divisional silos that failed to respond effectively to Apple's MP3 revolution and flat-screen TV price wars.
Sir Howard Stringer, a Welsh-born former journalist and head of Sony Corporation of America, was named Sony's first non-Japanese CEO in 2005. While he championed the "Sony United" concept, cut structural costs, and established Blu-ray over HD-DVD, his tenure was plagued by historic LCD TV losses, the 2008 global recession, the 2011 Japanese earthquake, and a massive 2011 PlayStation Network cyberattack.
Kazuo Hirai, who rose through Sony Music and PlayStation, became CEO in April 2012. He dismantled divisional silos through "One Sony," sold the unprofitable VAIO PC business, spun off the TV division, restructured mobile, and focused resources on CMOS image sensors, PlayStation 4 gaming, and entertainment content, turning billions in annual losses into record-breaking profits.
Kenichiro Yoshida, formerly CFO under Kaz Hirai, became CEO in April 2018. Yoshida redefined Sony as a "creative entertainment company with a solid foundation of technology." He spearheaded the acquisitions of EMI Music Publishing, Crunchyroll, and Bungie, established the Sony Honda Mobility joint venture, and announced the spin-off of Sony Financial Group.
Hiroki Totoki was promoted to President, Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Sony Group Corporation in 2023. In April 2024, Totoki also assumed the role of Chairman and Interim CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), leading a concerted effort to optimize gaming profit margins and expand PC releases.
Ken Kutaragi, celebrated as the "Father of the PlayStation," was an elite hardware engineer who defied conservative board members to develop Sony's proprietary gaming console. He served as Chairman and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment and Deputy President of Sony Corporation until stepping down in 2007 following the complicated launch of the PlayStation 3.
In 2003, Sony became one of the first major Japanese corporations to adopt an "electronic company with committees" governance structure under Japanese commercial law. It separated executive management from board oversight, established majority-independent nominating and audit committees, and embraced Western-style transparency.
Unlike previous Sony CEOs who were hardware engineers or finance executives, Hirai spent his career in software, entertainment marketing, and gaming operations. This gave him deep empathy for content creators, leading him to prioritize software ecosystem lock-in and high-margin intellectual property over commoditized consumer hardware volume.
Upon assuming interim leadership of Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2024, Totoki emphasized the need for disciplined budget controls on AAA game development, optimizing supply chain costs, improving console operating margins, and adopting aggressive simultaneous or near-term PC release windows for first-party multiplayer software.
Akio Morita is revered as Japan's greatest global corporate ambassador. He moved his family to New York in 1963 to master American consumer culture, authored the influential international bestseller "Made in Japan," and proved that Japanese industry could lead the world through product innovation, premium branding, and visionary consumer design.
Compare executive leadership tenures and strategic transitions
Explore Sony
Core profile pages, founders and related research hubs for this company.