Japanese firms need to reform seniority system: Mazda head.

Japan Weekly Monitor, May, 2002

TOKYO, May 16 Kyodo

Mark Fields, the head of Mazda Motor Corp. who has guided his company back to profitability under an aggressive two-year restructuring plan, said Thursday that Japanese firms need to reform their seniority-based promotion system to regain their vitality.

''Japan's current system fails to tap talent,'' Fields said in an address at the Global Forum of Keizai Doyukai, a leading business organization, his last public speech before his transfer July 1 to Ford Motor Co.'s Premier Automotive Group in London.

Fields became president of Mazda, which is 33.3% owned by Ford, in December 1999 at age 38.

Under a restructuring plan dubbed the Millennium Plan, Mazda bounced back into the black in fiscal 2001 ended this March...