Canon Inc. President Fujio Mitarai and Honda Motor Co. President Hiroyuki Yoshino have been chosen as two of the world's top 25 managers for 2001 by the U.S. magazine BusinessWeek.
In its Jan. 14 issue, scheduled to hit newsstands Friday, Steven Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., and Maurice Greenberg, chairman and CEO of American International Group, are identified by the magazine as the world's top business leaders.
The magazine hails Mitarai, describing him as "fast and decisive -- a far cry from the consensus builders who typically run Japan Inc."
Mitarai helped the printer and camera manufacturer boost its share of the global digital camera market to 14 percent in 2001 from the 9 percent share it achieved the preceding year, the magazine says.
Yoshino was praised for "Honda's stellar performance in Japan, where sales have risen for the past 24 consecutive months amid a domestic auto sales slump."
Yoshino helped the automaker post record sales of new cars in the United States in 2001, it says.