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 took up various assignment of planning, sales and marketing in America from 1999 to 2002. He was then assigned as General Manager to the Procurement Department, Panasonic Communications (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. for the period of 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 also has no family relationship with any Director and/or major shareholder of the Company nor any conflict of interest with the Company. He did not attend any Board Meetings during the financial year as he was appointed to the Board only recently and has no convictions for any offences within the past 5 years, other than traffic offences, if any.