Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn.
One of the auto industry’s most widely respected CEOs is sending signals that he might like to retire. But those who wonder how Nissan and its alliance partner Renault would replace 58-year-old Carlos Ghosn there may be no need to worry immediately.
The Brazilian-born executive, who serves as chief executive for both Nissan and Renault, may be ready to step down, but only sometime during the upcoming 5-year business cycle, company officials caution.
“Ghosn has said this is the last midterm plan he’ll commit to, meaning he may not stay here for the next midterm period,” Nissan spokesman Koji Okuda told the Bloomberg news service, adding that, “We need to prepare for his possible departure within a five-year period.
It is quite possible, several industry sources suggest, that Ghosn would not bow out entirely from the Euro-Asian alliance, which was created when Renault made a critical $6 billion investment in Nissan in 1999.
Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn shown with the Infiniti LE battery-car concept during the recent NY Auto Show.
At that time, the executive was put in charge of Nissan, spearheading a dramatic turnaround plan most credit with saving the troubled Japanese maker — and earning himself nicknames that included “Mr. Fix-It,” and to the French, “le cost killer.”
Ghosn added the titles of president and CEO of Renault in May 2005. By then he was already declared, by one key magazine, among the 50 most famous men in global business and politics. There have been a slew of biographies and business management books focusing on Ghosn – who was even made the star of a surprisingly popular Japanese “manga” comic book.
But Ghosn has turned most day-to-day management efforts in Japan over to key lieutenants and has been focusing more of his energy on Renault which, these days, is now considered the more troubled of the two manufacturers. And it is possible the executive may maintain the CEO title of the European maker, an insider told TheDetroitBureau.com.
Dubbed “the hardest-working man in the brutally competitive global car business,” Ghosn is known to log several 100,000 miles of flying annually as he helps expand the empire of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Just in the last few months he has made well-publicized appearances in Brazil, where Nissan is building a new plant; Russia, where the alliance is looking to substantially grow a new partnership; in Mexico, where Nissan is building a massive new assembly complex; and China, where the Japanese side of the alliance has launched a new brand, Venucia, with Chinese partner Dongfeng.
Were Ghosn to retire entirely some industry observers have even touted him as a potential presidential candidate in Lebanon, the country his grandfather Bichala Ghosn was born in before emigrating to a remote province in Brazil nearly a century ago.
Who might take the executive’s place at the Renault-Nissan Alliance? That depends on how completely Ghosn steps out, of course. Toshiyuki Shiga is the well-respected chief operating officer at Nissan’s Japanese headquarters, which moved to Yokohama several years ago.
Then there’s Carlos Tavares, the Portugese-born executive who was running Nissan’s American operations until moving to France as Ghosn’s second-in-command at Renault, last year.
Whomever is chosen will likely continue Ghosn’s emphasis on electrification, many analysts believe. The alliance CEO has been one of the strongest proponents of the technology personified by the Nissan Leaf and a variety of other Nissan and Renault battery cars coming to market over the next several years.