Mr Sugihara was appointed a Director and Managing Director of the Company on 1 June 2023. He graduated from Hitotsubashi University, Japan with a Degree in Law.
Mr Sugihara has more than 35 years of working experience with the Panasonic Holdings Corporation Group (“Panasonic”). He joined the Corporate Planning Department of Panasonic in 1988 and has been involved with Strategic Business Planning and was took up various assignment of planning, sales and marketing in America from 1999 to 2005. He was then assigned as General Manager to the Procurement Department, Telecom Company of Panasonic Communications (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd for the period 2005 to 2008.
He returned to Japan in April 2008 and was involved with corporate planning for a number of divisions within the Panasonic Group. He held position as Director, Corporate Planning division of the Heating & Ventilation AC Company before his assignment to Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Berhad.
Mr Sugihara has no shareholdings in the Company and its associated company. He holds 115 common shares of Panasonic Holdings Corporation, the ultimate holding company of Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Berhad. He also has no family relationship with any Director and/or major shareholder of the Company. He attended all the Board Meetings during the financial year and has no convictions for any offences within the past 5 years, other than traffic offences, if any.
He is a Board representative of Panasonic Holdings Corporation (“PHD”), a major shareholder of the Company, which presents a conflict of interest in view of the recurrent related party transactions between PHD Group and the Company where he is involved in management decision making of contracts with PHD Group. The Company has and will continue to address this conflict of interest situation by seeking the approval of the shareholders to enter into the recurrent related party transactions with PHD Group and Mr Sugihara will abstain from all Board deliberations and voting on matters related to this.