|
Olympus
Corporation is a Japan based manufacturer of optics and reprography
products. The company is well known for its precision machineries
and instruments, cameras, voice recorders, medical endoscopes and
other medical devices.
British-born
Michael Woodford, an Olympus veteran of 30-years, was the first
non-Japanese person to be appointed as the company's CEO in 2011. He
had been company president for six months, and two weeks prior had
been promoted to CEO, when he exposed "one of the biggest and
longest-running loss-hiding arrangements in Japanese corporate
history" known as the Olympus Scandal, according to the Wall Street
Journal.
Amid this
management turmoil in the company, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa the then-chairman of
Olympus Corporation stepped down. Describing the allegations made by
Woodford as "unforgivable", he said that WoodFord was deliberately
trying to damage the company's reputation, and was trying to oust
the Board in order to reposition himself at the head of the company |