Above: Epson President and CEO Yasunori Ogawa
Epson CEO and President Yasunori Ogawa has visited Australia with a special message for local printers and customers.
Visiting Australia for the first time as president, Ogawa who is not only an enthusiastic skier, talented footballer and occasional ukulele instrumentalist has joined more than 150 staff for the 40th anniversary of the formation of Epson Australia in Manly today.
In an interview yesterday, Sprinter asked Ogawa if there was a special message he would like to send to local commercial printing customers.
“We would like our customers in Australia and New Zealand to understand that Epson is extremely focused on sustainability and our technological innovation is what we call – Efficient, Compact and Precise technologies – that is naturally good for the environment. We would like to send this message to our customers in the Oceania region.
“For Epson, it is not just about sustainability but being able to react to customer needs. We know that companies who introduce our products and use these products will open up new revenue streams as well. This relates to opportunities not just in garment printing or fabrics, but also labels and large format print as well as the reproduction of photography.
“In the large format area – changing analogue printing to digital printing with sustainability in mind. This includes products such as direct to garment printing or fabrics – what this means is again replacing analogue with digital processes which makes it much easier for the customer to use and enables smaller production opportunities. This enables customers to react very quickly and with flexibility.
“In consumer printing we are focusing on phasing out the cartridge models in favour of EcoTank which dramatically reduces the consumable waste and in the office we are changing the mainstream laser printers to inkjet that uses significantly less electricity,” Ogawa said.
As president, Ogawa has focused on creating an open-minded corporate culture in which employees can express opinions and maximise potential. He has said publicly that the company should understand issues faced by its customers and society, and leverage its efficient, compact and precise technologies to help solve these issues.
Ogawa was appointed global president of Epson in April 2020 after a long career focused on developing Epson technologies, products and businesses. Born in Aichi, Japan, he studied engineering at university and joined Epson in 1988.
Ogawa’s first task was to design image sensors for fax machines. He was then assigned to the projector business where he was part of the team responsible for commercialising Epson’s first business projector. He then spent several years building up the visual products business before being appointed COO in 2017.
In 2018, Ogawa was appointed director, executive officer and then CTO responsible for Epson’s R&D and manufacturing technology. Then followed a stint in charge of the Wearable Products & Industrial Solutions Operations segment before being appointed to his current role.
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