Osamu Suzuki, who led the Japanese automaker Suzuki Motor for more than four decades and transformed into a global powerhouse, died on Wednesday in Shizuoka Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo. He was 94.

       Suzuki Motor said in a statement that the cause of his death, in a hospital, was malignant lymphoma.

       Mr. Suzuki was president of Suzuki Motor from 1978 to 2000 and, after that, served off and on in other top roles with the company. His tenure of nearly half a century at the helm made him among the longest-serving leaders of any major automaker.

       Under his leadership, Suzuki Motor grew from a relatively small company with sales of a few billion dollars annually to what it is today: a leading maker of small vehicles and motorcycles with revenues of more than $30 billion a year because of its strong position in overseas markets like India.

       Mr. Suzuki, the fourth son in a farming family, was born on Jan. 30, 1930, in Gifu Prefecture, west of Tokyo. After obtaining a law degree from Chuo University in 1953, he worked at a bank until he met his future wife, Shoko Suzuki, a member of the automaker’s founding family. They married in the late 1950s and he took his wife’s family name, not an uncommon practice among prominent Japanese families.

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       Mr. Suzuki steadily rose through the executive ranks and became president two decades after joining the company in 1958.

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       Mr. Suzuki with the company’s Alto vehicle in Tokyo in 2009.Credit...Franck Robichon/European Pressphoto Agency

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