Mark Templin Takes Over Toyota North America in January

Mark Templin will become president and chief executive of Toyota Motor North America on January 1, 2027, succeeding Ted Ogawa, who is returning to Japan after nearly seven years running the company’s largest overseas business.

Ogawa stays in the job through December 31, serves as senior executive advisor from January through March, and then takes up a new post at Toyota Motor Corporation in April as senior fellow, overseeing external affairs for some Toyota-owned businesses. Hiroshi Nambu, currently president of the parent company’s Business Planning and Operation division, moves to Plano, Texas, to take Templin’s current job as chief operating officer.

Toyota announced the changes in a release on November 5, the same day its parent company in Japan published a company-wide list of executive moves that names new regional chief executives for North America, China and Asia. Templin has been TMNA’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, and as CEO he will run manufacturing, research and development, sales, marketing, product support and corporate functions for the region.

Ogawa took the top North American job in April 2020, weeks into the pandemic, and the release credits him with steering the company through the supply chain disruptions and regulatory fights that followed while continuing to invest in US plants. The biggest of those bets was Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina, the company’s first in-house battery plant outside Japan, which opened in 2025 after a nearly $14 billion investment that is expected to create up to 5,100 jobs. Toyota also committed up to $10 billion more to US operations over five years during his tenure, bringing its total US investment to nearly $60 billion, and more recently announced a $3.6 billion expansion of its San Antonio truck plant that will add about 2,000 jobs.

"Leading Toyota in North America has been one of the greatest honors of my career," Ogawa said. "I am proud of and deeply grateful to our team members, dealers and partners for strengthening our business and building a foundation for the next generation." He joined Toyota in 1984 and held posts in Japan, China and the United States before becoming TMNA’s chief operating officer, and he was previously deputy CEO of Toyota’s China region and president of Toyota Motor China Investment.

"Mark has the experience and vision to build on Toyota’s strong foundation in North America," Ogawa said of his successor. Templin returned the compliment, saying Ogawa’s leadership "expanded our manufacturing footprint and positioned us for continued success," and that he is "honored to build on the foundation he established."

Nambu is not a stranger to the US side of the business. He joined Toyota in 1993 after graduating from Keio University’s law faculty and later worked at Toyota Motor Sales USA, and from 2004 to 2007 he coordinated product planning between Toyota’s US sales, manufacturing and engineering arms. His career since has run through Japan sales, the Corolla sales channel and cost planning, and in his current role he oversees planning across sales, operations, mobility and the value chain. "I’m excited to return to North America and take on this new responsibility at such an important time for Toyota," he said. Motonobu Kawamura, general manager of the business planning division, takes over Nambu’s current post in Japan.

The handover lands at a turning point for the region. Toyota reported on the same day that its North American operations swung back to an operating profit of 166.1 billion yen in the first half of its fiscal year after losing money a year earlier under US tariffs, and it told investors the recovery plan rests on more hybrid battery production in North Carolina, moving Tacoma assembly from Mexico to Texas and more automation in its plants. Toyota says it directly employs about 65,000 people in North America across 14 manufacturing plants and more than 1,800 Toyota and Lexus dealerships.

The Toyota Report Take

Promoting the American chief operating officer rather than sending another executive from Japan is the notable part of this. Templin inherits a business that has just clawed its way back to a thin profit, a $3.6 billion Texas expansion to deliver and a tariff environment Toyota now treats as permanent, and his first year will be judged on whether the Tacoma move and the North Carolina battery ramp hold up. Ogawa leaves with the North Carolina plant open and nearly $60 billion of US investment on the books, which is a better exit than most executives who started a job in April 2020 can claim.