Purchasing exec to head Nissan's Americas operations
Ghosn scales back U.S. role amid profit decline
By Dave Hannon -- Purchasing, 3/16/2007 12:46:00 PM
Nissan Motor Co. announced that CEO Carlos Ghosn will give up his post as the chairman of its Americas management committee and will be replaced in that role by Hiroto Saikawa, the executive vice president of purchasing at Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.
Saikawa is a longtime purchasing executive and previously was chairman of the management committee in Europe and ran joint purchasing for Renault and Nissan. He will continue to head the company’s global purchasing operations with regional purchasing vice presidents reporting into him.
Saikawa is known within Nissan as a rising star and a close advisor to Ghosn on global issues. Before assuming his current role in 2005, Saikawa was senior vice president responsible for the purchasing administration, purchasing engineering support and service support purchasing departments.
The move was one of many management changes announced by Nissan this morning after Nissan missed its profit forecast for the first time in seven years.In a statement on the company’s web site Ghosn said, “The priority for our new management team is to act decisively on the multiple challenges facing Nissan and to boost our overall performance in 2007.”
The restructuring will allow Ghosn to focus more on growth at both both Nissan and Renault, which he heads as well. “Ghosn revived the company by running flat out, but he has pushed himself and employees to the point of exhaustion,'' said Koichi Ogawa at Daiwa SB Investments in a Bloomberg report.
Putting a purchasing executive at the top of the Americas org chart at a time when sales are slipping is a sign the company will focus even more on cost reduction and supply chain efficiency. Bloomberg cites analysts including Koji Endo at Credit Suisse Group in Tokyo in reporting that Nissan will announce a plan in April in response to missing its profit goal that will “focus on cutting costs further in purchasing, making better use of production capacity, and strengthen sales and marketing efforts especially in Japan and the U.S.”
Nissan North America has a strong supplier management program in place under current vice president of purchasing John Miller, who reports to Saikawa. Purchasing featured in its October 5, 2006 automotive industry report.
Purchasing.com will continue to provide updates on this story as they become available.
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