Michimasa Fujino

is a retired Japanese aeronautical engineer, entrepreneur, and founder of the Honda Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of the Honda Motor Company. Fujino worked as chief engineer within Honda R&D, then as vice president, before he was named the project leader for HondaJet development. He was also a Honda Motor managing officer. At Honda Aircraft, he played a crucial role in the growth of the company, and was responsible for the overall strategy of its design, development, certification, marketing, sales, and production of the HondaJet.

For his work at Honda Aircraft, Fujino has received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aircraft Design Award (2012), the SAE International Award, the Clarence L. Kelly Johnson Aerospace and Vehicle Design Award (2014), and the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences Award for Innovation in Aeronautics. He is the first aircraft designer to receive all four awards, as well as the first individual of Asian descent to win the AIAA award, making him a notable figure in the contemporary aviation and very light jet industry.

Fujino was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2017 for the creation of the HondaJet and the formation of the Honda Aircraft Company. In 2022, it was announced that he would retire as president and CEO of the company in April, a post he held since its founding in 2006, and continue as a consultant following his retirement.

Background Education Fujino holds a Bachelor of Science degree and Doctorate degree in aeronautical engineering from University of Tokyo. He is also currently a fellow in several international organizations, including the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Royal Aeronautical Society, and SAE International. Fujino is also an international member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Career

1984–1997 Fujino joined Honda Motor in 1984.

In 1986, Fujino and the Honda aviation team were dispatched to the United States to conduct advanced aeronautics research with the Mississippi State University’s Raspet Flight Research Center. The team developed two experimental aircraft, the MH-01 turboprop and the MH-02 twin-engine light jet. Building on this experience, in 1997 Fujino began work on an entirely new aircraft, which would become the HondaJet. His new design also featured a number of other innovations for a general aviation aircraft, including a natural-laminar flow wing, all-composite fuselage, and glass cockpit.

In 2000, Fujino and a small team of engineers began work on the HondaJet prototype at the Piedmont International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina. On December 3, 2003, the proof-of-concept HondaJet conducted its first successful test flight. In 2006, Fujino was able to convince then-Honda CEO Takeo Fukui to commercialize the HondaJet program. In 2014, Fujino received the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS) “Award for Innovation in Aeronautics.” He received the SAE International “Clarence L. (Kelly) Johnson Aerospace Vehicle Design and Development Award” in 2013, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) “Aircraft Design Award” in 2012. Fujino is the first individual to receive all four of these awards. He later received the AIAA Reed Aeronautics Award in 2021.

Fujino’s business activities as an entrepreneur have also attracted attention. In 2018, Harvard Business School professor Gary Pisano published a case study that analyzed Fujino’s business development of the HondaJet program; this was later incorporated into Pisano’s 2019 monograph Creative Construction. In 2019, another Harvard Business School professor, Hirotaka Takeuchi, discussed Fujino’s business leadership in his work The Wise Company.

In February 2022, Honda Aircraft announced that Fujino will retire as president and CEO of the company on April 1, and that Honda Motor vice president Hideto Yamasaki will assume leadership of Honda Aircraft upon Fujino's departure. It was revealed that in March, he will reach Honda’s mandatory retirement age of 62, but would continue as a consultant for Honda Aircraft following his retirement.

Works