Embattled Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. will get a new leader in June. Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, former president of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, a major business lobby group, will become chairman of the utility that operates the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Kobayashi will carry a heavy burden of responsibility as he tries to reinvent the company and regain society's trust.

As part of governance reforms based on its failure to prevent the catastrophic triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant in 2011, TEPCO in 2012 strengthened its oversight of management by outside directors. As chairman, Kobayashi will represent the group of outside directors.

Since the organizational change, the company has had three chairmen, including experienced corporate managers and a reputed corporate turnaround artist. But they all failed to change the company’s corporate culture. The post of chairman has been vacant since June last year.

TEPCO urgently needs to improve its earnings performance to finance compensation payments related to the nuclear disaster and the huge costs of decommissioning the reactors at the plant. To secure its ability to supply power, however, the electric utility first needs to revamp its corporate culture, which lies at the heart of the company's inability to commit wholeheartedly to the safety-first principle.

TEPCO already this year has been hit by a series of embarrassing revelations about security lapses. The company, for instance, failed to notice malfunctioning of equipment designed to detect unauthorized entry to controlled-access areas at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture and left the situation uncorrected at multiple sites for more than 30 days since March last year. These revelations cast fresh doubt about its corporate culture.

Kobayashi was involved in development of plans to rebuild TEPCO as a member of the steering committee of the Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation, a government body set up to help the utility with victim compensation and funding of reactor decommissioning. The entity is TEPCO's largest shareholder. Kobayashi also served as an outside director for the utility from 2012 to 2015. He must be well versed in the problems that beset the company.

But his remarks at a news conference to announce his appointment as new chairman were not particularly reassuring. While acknowledging that his principal mission is to restore public trust in the company, Kobayashi said he will develop and execute specific plans to achieve the goal in consultation with the management team.

But such a weak-kneed approach will never do the trick. Kobayashi needs to take to heart the grim reality that TEPCO could face a crisis of survival unless he leads a reform drive to change the corporate mindset to embrace common sense, which society expects, and communicate progress in the effort to the public.

He will face the first major test of his ability to lead the company as he deals with plans to release treated radioactive water from the stricken Fukushima plant into the sea. TEPCO has repeatedly pledged to “make appropriate responses” if the plan, adopted by the government, causes any negative economic impact due to fears about the possible health risk of consuming seafood caught from those waters.

Local fishermen are vehemently opposed to the plan and remain deeply distrustful of the company.

TEPCO cannot claim to have been dealing with the plight of victims of the nuclear accident in a sincere manner. Despite its “three vows” concerning its responsibility for the accident, including a pledge to pay compensation until “the last one of the victims” receives it, the company has taken steps to limit its total payout.

Kobayashi must be prepared to face rigorous public scrutiny of his ability and commitment to ensure the company will put top priority on providing genuine relief to victims.

The government, the effective top shareholder of the utility, also has an obligation to help Kobayashi in his mission to transform the company into an organization capable of fulfilling its responsibilities concerning compensation to victims and decommissioning of the destroyed reactors.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 1