Honda Racing Corporation will appoint Keiichi Yasuda as president and chief executive from 1 January 2027, succeeding Koji Watanabe as the manufacturer reorganises its global motorsport leadership for the new season.
Watanabe will retire from the position on the same date. Yasuda is currently HRC's executive vice president and representative director, a role he took up in April 2026.
Honda described the succession as a planned personnel rotation intended to strengthen HRC's management structure and support its next phase of global expansion. The company brought the change forward from Japan's more usual April appointment cycle so the new leadership would be in place from the start of the 2027 motorsport season.
Yasuda brings international management experience
Yasuda joined Honda in 1990 in human resources and has held management roles across the company's Asian operations. His career includes assignments in the United States, India and Thailand, followed by appointments as president and chief executive of Boon Siew Honda in Malaysia and president director of Astra Honda Motor in Indonesia.
He returned to Honda's Tokyo headquarters in 2023 as operating officer and head of the human resources unit, overseeing company-wide personnel reforms, talent strategy and human-capital management. HRC says that background, together with his experience running overseas subsidiaries, will inform his focus on people and organisational development.
In the company's announcement, Yasuda said his priorities would be to build on Watanabe's foundation, align the organisation around winning races and invest in its workforce. MRI has paraphrased the statement rather than reproducing the release's quotation.
Watanabe oversaw HRC's global integration
Watanabe became HRC president and chief executive in 2022 after taking responsibility for Honda's brand, communications and motorsport activities in 2020. His tenure included the integration of Honda's motorcycle and automobile racing operations under the HRC identity.
The company also credits his leadership period with the decision to return to Formula 1, the reorganisation of Honda Performance Development as HRC US, the establishment of HRC UK and the development of HRC as a global motorsport brand.
Those are Honda's descriptions of the outgoing executive's record. The announcement does not publish financial performance, headcount or operating targets for the organisation, and it does not identify further changes to HRC's executive team.
The appointment places an executive with international operating and workforce experience at the head of Honda's two-wheel and four-wheel racing organisation as its Formula 1 power-unit programme, motorcycle racing operations and regional competition businesses enter the 2027 season.
No feature image has been used because reusable first-party permission was not established. MRI has no exact global Honda Racing Corporation business profile, so the article is not attached to a series-specific Honda team or regional HRC subsidiary and no logo has been invented.