Gentle Jim - Dallas Morning News
It was the early ’80s, and the young, affable Lentz — now CEO of Toyota’s North American operations — had just begun work as a merchandising manager in Toyota’s Portland, Ore. “He thought I was too soft,” Lentz said recently in an interview at his third-floor office at Toyota’s temporary headquarters in Plano. Today, the still mild-mannered Lentz rules Toyota’s operations in North America with low-profile authority — a 70-hour-a-week chief exec who still manages to be a 4-handicap golfer. “I never speak first when I’m sitting around a table with my managers because if I do, I know they will tell me what I want to hear,” said Lentz, 59, who drives a Lexus NX hybrid crossover. Despite his image as Gentle Jim, Lentz has quietly become the most powerful North America CEO in Toyota’s 58-year history in the U. S. , with responsibility for all of the company’s operations — sales, marketing, engineering, manufacturing and... He and Akio Toyoda, CEO of Toyota Motor Corp. , shook the auto industry last year with their decision to move the company’s North American headquarters from its longtime base in Southern California to Plano. All of Toyota’s far-flung American divisions will be consolidated on a 100-acre campus rising from a site in West Plano — an enormous geographic and lifestyle change for 4,000 or. Source: www.dallasnews.com
