Toyota VP to speak at Mayor's Prayer Breakfast

ASHEBORO — This year’s Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast speaker will be Richard Ngosi, the Vice President of Manufacturing at the Toyota North Carolina plant in Liberty.

The 32nd annual event will be held at the AVS Banquet Centre in Asheboro on Thursday, May 7.

Ngosi was promoted to vice president of manufacturing at Toyota’s North Carolina plant, where the company will produce lithium-ion batteries, in June 2025. In his new role, Ngosi oversees all areas of battery manufacturing, including engineering, maintenance and production. 

Toyota North Carolina is the company’s first battery manufacturing plant outside of Japan. Once it began production in 2025, TBMNC employed 5,100 North Carolinians and operated 14 production lines, delivering batteries for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles. 

In 2006, Ngosi joined Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan as a senior engineer in the general assembly engineering department. Throughout his career with the company, Ngosi has served in several capacities and supported extensive international projects for Toyota in Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Indonesia, India, South Africa, the U.K., Turkey and the US. Before his promotion, Ngosi was the general manager of Unit and Support Groups at Toyota Indiana. 

Coming from humble beginnings in Malawi, a country in Southeast Africa, Ngosi remained true to his personal motto, “In all things, with patience, humility, gratitude and integrity, act as if it is impossible to fail,” and became the first of his five siblings to graduate college. In his continued quest to be the best he could be in life, Ngosi immersed himself in hundreds of cultures while living on six of the world’s continents for 27 years. 

Ngosi is an alumnus of Waseda University, located in Tokyo, Japan, where he earned both a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering and a master’s degree in computer science. 

Ngosi and his wife reside in Greensboro with their three children. They look forward to immersing themselves in North Carolina’s vibrant culture and exploring the state’s expansive outdoor adventures. Ngosi is a visiting member of Mercy Hill Church and enjoys playing soccer, watching movies and reading in his free time.