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Advance registration required. Click here to register.
A live Webcast of the symposium will also be available at 6:00pm EST on April 6.

Speakers

Steven Sturm, Group Vice President of Americas Strategic Research and Planning and Corporate Communications, Toyota Motor North America

William Holstein, Author, Why GM Matters: Inside the Race to Transform an American Icon

Commentator
Hugh Patrick, Director, Center on Japanese Economy and Business; R.D. Calkins Professor of International Business Emeritus, Columbia Business School

Moderator
David Weinstein, Carl S. Shoup Professor of the Japanese Economy, Economics Department, Columbia University; Associate Director of Research, Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia Business School

Synopsis
The U.S. and Japanese recessions are ravaging auto firms, and indeed the auto industry is in trouble globally. With plummeting sales, factories are being closed and workers laid off. GM and Toyota, the two largest players in the U.S. and in the world, are grappling with the same macroeconomic forces but face different circumstances. Can GM be sufficiently restructured, and rapidly enough, so that it can once again be a viable, competitive company? Will its adoption of the Toyota lean production model engender success? What will Toyota, having expanded capacity so rapidly and generating its own problems along the way, need to do to weather this downturn and be even more competitive in the future?
Our panelists- an industry expert and a top Toyota executive in the U.S.-will offer possible answers to these questions, which get to the heart of the industry's woes today, and will propose visions for how it could look tomorrow.

Cosponsored by Columbia Business School's Asian Business Association, General Management Association, and Japan Business Association