Toshiba Water appoints Hiroaki Kobayashi as chairperson & MD
India-headquartered Toshiba Water Solutions has appointed Hiroaki Kobayashi as its chairperson and managing director.
Kobayashi will lead Toshiba Water to the path of next level of growth across company's water and wastewater businesses in India and overseas.
A commerce graduate from Doshisha University in Japan, Kobayashi brings a rich and extensive experience of over two decades in business development and strategic planning in wastewater management industry. He specialises in managing EPC contracts for large water and wastewater plants in India as well as abroad.
Kobayashi has succeeded Koichi Matsui who was at the helm of Toshiba Water affairs for more than five years.
“Toshiba Water has established India as the International Business Centre for its water and wastewater management business. Furthering our commitment to provide the latest technologies and solutions for India and the world, we are introducing and implementing IoT as a service for O&M of wastewater plants. As I take over this huge responsibility from Mr Matsui, I reiterate Toshiba Water commitment to India and other overseas territories and look forward to reinforcing our long-term partnership with customers and partners to turn on the promise of a new day for India and the world,” said Kobayashi on his appointment.
Across his over two decades of experience, Kobayashi has held various leadership roles in international operations, business development, sales, and other commercial functions in the water and wastewater management business across Asia. He spent seven years in Japan and two years in China as in-charge of their domestic municipal water and wastewater market. He also spent three years to develop new market in Southeast Asia including Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and so on.
His first association with India’s wastewater industry dates back to 2010, where he was overseeing business development for Toshiba’s wastewater management business in India. In addition to developing Toshiba Water international business strategy, Kobayashi was instrumental in securing the JICA funded projects like the Chandrawal Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) in Delhi, the TK Hali WTP in Karnataka.
A wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba Group, Toshiba Water is an international multi-disciplinary environmental services company, that specialises in providing turnkey services in water and wastewater collection, treatment and disposal, recovery and reuse plants.