Unlike his predecessors as head of Keidanren, Toray Industries Inc. Chairman Sadayuki Sakakibara doesn't belong to the business lobby's current leadership group of more than a dozen vice chairmen or chief of its Board of Councilors.

The 70-year-old Sakakibara, who will take over as leader of Keidanren in June, has been away from the organization for nearly three years after serving as a vice chairman from 2007 to 2011.

Hiromasa Yonekura, 76, the current Keidanren chairman and the chairman of Sumitomo Chemical Co., made his intention known early in the process that he wanted his successor to have a manufacturing background.