This is Toshiba’s first major board reshuffle since June 2019, when the company accepted four activist-backed candidates, including current nomination committee chairman Raymond Zage, its first foreign appointment in some 80 years, following a capital infusion from hedge funds and other investors in 2017 and the sale of its flash memory subsidiary to a Bain Capital-led consortium in 2018.

The reshuffle, decided at the annual general meeting held here, comes as Toshiba reviews its strategic options, including a possible buyout by a private equity company, after shareholders in March rejected a plan by the previous management to restructure Toshiba without help from outside parties.

Among the new board members are representatives of two vocal shareholders: hedge funds Elliott Management and Farallon Capital Management. Eijiro Imai is managing director of Farallon Capital Japan, and Nabeel Bhanji is Elliott’s senior portfolio manager.

Also approved as board chairman was Akihiro Watanabe, head of Asia corporate finance at Houlihan Lokey, a boutique US investment bank.

Zage, the nomination committee chairman, explained in May that the inclusion of the candidates recommended by the hedge funds was aimed at rebuilding trust with shareholders following revelations that Toshiba’s management worked behind the scenes with the Japanese government to block the appointment of hedge fund-backed board candidates at a shareholders meeting in 2020.

In March, Toshiba appointed Taro Shimada, a former Siemens executive and then Toshiba’s chief digital officer, as CEO. In a new business strategy announced earlier this month, Shimada said Toshiba will put the data business at the core of its operations and aim to generate 20% of the company’s profit from the data business in a shift away from its traditional focus on industrial manufacturing, ranging from power plants to computers and semiconductors.