Who Is Shoichiro Toyoda? The First Heir to the Toyota Empire and Father of Current CEO Akio Toyoda Has Died Shoichiro is remembered for expanding Toyota’s manufacturing to the U.S. and launching the high-end Lexus brand. Previous Article 'I Need To Stabilize the Organization': Elon Musk Reveals When He Will Name a New Twitter CEO Next Article 10 Reasons to Ignore Negative People