Jun Karube

Senior Executive Advisor
Toyota Tsusho

Jun Karube, born in 1953, joined Toyota Tsusho in 1976 on earning a degree in electrical engineering from Yokohama National University. He worked in machinery and equipment exporting at the company’s Osaka Branch until receiving his first overseas assignment: a 1979 posting to the New York–based subsidiary Toyoda America (now Toyota Tsusho America). Karube subsequently worked at Sanyo Business Systems Corporation, a New Jersey–based Toyota Tsusho joint venture that marketed desktop computers, cash registers, and copiers, before returning to Japan in 1983. Back in Japan, he resumed work in machinery and equipment exporting at the Osaka Branch.

Karube received another US posting in 1990 as the manager of Toyota Tsusho’s San Francisco Office and moved to Toyota Tsusho America in 1993. Returning to Japan in 1998, he took up duties in the Logistics Department at Toyota Tsusho’s Nagoya Head Office and became the department’s general manager the next year. Karube became a member of the board of directors at Toyota Tsusho in 2004, the president and CEO in June 2011, and the chairman in 2018. He assumed his present position in 2022.

In addition to his duties at Toyota Tsusho, Karube has served since June 2019 as an outside audit and supervisory board member at Sanyo Chemical Industries and as an outside director at Meiko Trans. He served from June 2020 to June 2024 as an outside audit and supervisory board member at KDDI Corporation. The French government named Karube a Knight of the Legion of Honor in January 2017. Away from work, Karube enjoys reading and watching sports, especially basketball.