The day after Sony Corp. named Kazuo Hirai the frontrunner to succeed Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer, Japan’s strongest quake hit. Three weeks into the job, an intruder hacked into the company’s online services.
The theft of personal data and possibly credit-card information for 77 million of Sony’s customers will test Hirai’s leadership because it’s the first major crisis since he became head of all consumer electronics on April 1, investors and analysts said. The breach has already led to a legal and regulatory backlash after the Tokyo-based company took more than a week to warn subscribers their accounts were compromised.
